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Simple Simulation in Altium Designer
On-Demand Webinar •
SPICE Simulation Made Simple

SPICE simulation saves you critical time in the prototyping phase. Understanding your simulation interface makes it simple to analyze how your circuits work in different scenarios. Altium Designer provides an intuitive, dedicated interface to support your simulation verification, setup, and analysis directly in your schematic environment. You also benefit from growing support for popular model formats, as well as generic models, simplifying circuit definition and simulation.

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PCB Shield
Blog •
Phalanx, not Failure: PCB Shielding to Protect Your Design

A combination of good printed circuit board design and good shielding mitigates EMI. Good PCB design for EMI shielding revolves around the layout, the placement of filters, and ground planes. A well-designed PCB minimizes parasitic capacitance and ground loops. Keep reading to learn more about PCB shielding.

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Embedded thumbnail for Using Document Parameters with Draftsman
How to Work with Draftsman •
Using Document Parameters with Draftsman

The Draftsman Editor in Altium Designer uses document parameters to allow fine grain control over the draftsman document. We’ll show you how you can use the document parameters in your Draftsman document. 

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Embedded thumbnail for High-Speed Features of Creating a Stack
How To Work with High-Speed Projects •
High-Speed Features of Creating a Stack

The foundation of any high speed design is the layer stack. We’ll show you some of Altium Designer’s powerful layer stack creation features.

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Man working in Altium Designer
Blog •
Best Practices in Hardware Version Control Systems

Any project can get very complex, and the PCB design team needs to track revisions throughout a project. Why worry about tracking revisions? In the event you ever receive changes to product functional requirements, major changes are made to your product’s architecture, or you’re ready to finalize the design and prepare for fabrication, it’s best to clone a project at its current state and begin working on a new version. Keeping track of all these design changes in a PCB design project takes the type of hardware version control tools you’ll find in Altium 365™.

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Embedded thumbnail for High-Speed Return Paths
How To Work with High-Speed Projects •
High-Speed Return Paths

For high speed designs it is critical to maintain your return path for adequate signal integrity. We’ll show you how, using best practices and error resolutions in Altium Designer.

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Embedded thumbnail for Working with Design Variants
How to Work with Draftsman •
Working with Design Variants

Altium Designer’s Draftsman Document allows for several different board views and variants that you can work with. We’ll show you how to add new variants and work with their properties to display exactly what you need in your Draftsman Document

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Embedded thumbnail for Creating Schematics in High-speed Projects
How To Work with High-Speed Projects •
Creating Schematics in High-speed Projects

There are several powerful features in Altium Designer for creating schematics in high speed projects. We’ll show you a few, such as how to utilize nets, net classes, blankets, design rules, and differential pairs.

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Copper pour and via stitching
Blog •
Copper Pour and Via Stitching: Do You Need Them in a PCB Layout?

To pour or not to pour, to stitch or not to stitch… Over many years, some common “rules of thumb” have become very popular and, ultimately, taken a bit out of context. Rules of thumb are not always wrong, but taking PCB design recommendations out of context helps justify bad design practices, and it can even affect the producibility of your board. Like many aspects of a physical PCB layout, via stitching and copper pour can be like acid: quite useful if implemented properly, but also dangerous if used indiscriminately.

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Altium Designer Signal Integrity
On-Demand Webinar •
What is High-Speed Design?

The primary source of high-speed problems is not due to high clock frequency but rather the fast rise and fall times of component signals. With fast edge rates, reflections may occur at the receiver side, and when the board routing is dense, crosstalk may become a problem. During this webinar, you'll sharpen your knowledge and develop new skills that you can use to design High-Speed PCB's more efficiently and effectively.

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MOSFET Components
Blog •
Should You Use Power MOSFETs in Series?

Power MOSFETs enable a huge range of electronic systems, specifically in situations where BJTs are not useful or efficient. MOSFETs can be used in high current systems in parallel arrangements, but what about their use in series? Both arrangements of MOSFETs have their pitfalls that designers should consider. Let’s look at MOSFETs in series as they are quite useful in certain systems, but be careful to design your circuits and your PCB for reliability.

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Embedded thumbnail for Creating Connectivity
How to Work with Multichannel Schematic •
Creating Connectivity

Multichannel connectivity can be created in a few different ways. We’ll show you how to create connectivity using ports and net labels efficiently and effectively. 

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Embedded thumbnail for Hierarchical Structure for High-Speed Projects
How To Work with High-Speed Projects •
Hierarchical Structure for High-Speed Projects

A Hierarchical structure can make your high speed project much easier to navigate and complete. We’ll show you some tips and tricks for creating and maintaining a high speed. Hierarchical design project.

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Embedded thumbnail for Schematic Design Reuse Using Snippets
How to work with Snippets •
Schematic Design Reuse Using Snippets

Snippets allow you to easily reuse circuitry across multiple parts of your designs. We’ll show you how create a new snippets the Schematic and how to connect and annotate it so you can easily bring your circuitry directly into your board.

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MLCC controlled ESR capacitor
Blog •
Controlled ESR Capacitors: Should You Use Them for Power Integrity?

I can’t think of a single product I’ve built that doesn’t require capacitors. We often talk a lot about effective series inductance (ESL) in capacitors and its effects on power integrity. What about effective series resistance (ESR)? Is there a technique you can use to determine the appropriate level of resistance, and can you use ESR to your advantage?

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Embedded thumbnail for PCB Design Reuse Using Snippets
How to work with Snippets •
PCB Design Reuse Using Snippets

Snippets give you easy access to reuse circuitry on your PCB. Let’s take a look at how you can create and configure snippets for the PCB, connect a component link with the schematic and update the PCB to include your snippet.

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Ground Pour, Impedance and Losses
Blog •
Microstrip Ground Clearance Part 2: How Clearance Affects Losses

If your goal is to hit a target impedance, and you’re worried about how nearby pour might affect impedance, you can get closer than the limits set by the 3W rule. But what are the effects on losses? If the reason for this question isn’t obvious, or if you’re not up-to-date on the finer points of transmission line design, then keep reading to see how nearby ground pour can affect losses in impedance-controlled interconnects.

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Altium Designer Interface
On-Demand Webinar •
What is High-Speed Design?

The primary source of high-speed problems is not due to high clock frequency but rather the fast rise and fall times of component signals. With fast edge rates, reflections may occur at the receiver side, and when the board routing is dense, crosstalk may become a problem. During this webinar, you'll sharpen your knowledge and develop new skills that you can use to design High-Speed PCB's more efficiently and effectively. 

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Choosing the Right Microphone for Embedded Applications
Blog •
Choosing the Right Microphone for Embedded Applications

If you need to capture sound waves for your electrical device to process, you'll need a microphone. However, microphones these days have become very advanced, and there are so many options to choose from. They range from the relatively simple and popular condenser type microphones to state-of-the-art sound conversion solutions incorporating internal amplifiers and other electronic processing functionality. In this article, we'll take a look at some of the options available.

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Embedded thumbnail for Creating Schematic Channels
How to Work with Multichannel Schematic •
Creating Schematic Channels

Altium Designer makes creating single and multichannel designs effective and quick. We’ll show you how to create and annotate output and input channels in your design. 

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Blog •
Start Altium Designer 24 Training for Free

Level up your design skills with Altium Designer 24 training! Whether you're looking to brush up on the basics or delve into advanced techniques, our instructor-led or on-demand videos will help you master the latest features.

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Blog •
PCB Layout Replication Whitepaper

Experience seamless acceleration in your design workflow with Altium Designer® 24's PCB Layout Replication feature. Effortlessly duplicate layouts for recurring circuit blocks and component groups, amplifying efficiency and reducing expenses.

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Blog •
Custom Pad Stack Whitepaper

Explore our manual on the Custom Pad Stack enhanced feature. From thermal connections to pad shapes, every detail matters. Pads are no longer merely points; they demand unique, tailored solutions. With Altium Designer 24, you can customize pad shapes, fine-tune thermal relief, and master rounded/chamfered rectangle pads to meet manufacturing standards, conquer tight spaces, and elevate your design game significantly.

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Blog •
Pi.MX8 Project - Board Layout Part 2

We are continuing the exploration of board layout in our Pi.MX8 Project. In this chapter, we focus on defining the impedance profiles, establishing matching design rules for the correct trace width, and initiating the routing of the DRAM interface.

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Blog •
Constraint Manager Whitepaper

Explore the precision of PCB design with Altium Designer's latest Constraint Manager! Hone your skills in component positioning, routing, and rule definition to enhance your design capabilities with Altium's state-of-the-art tools. Discover more about this cutting-edge feature in the manual today.

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Blog •
USB to Serial-Over-RJ45 Module

Have you considered converting a USB interface to serial (UART), while delivering data over a custom Ethernet cable and RJ45 connectors? If so, we invite you to check out this article on building a USB to Serial-Over-RJ45 Module. Additionally, you'll find a link to our workspace to explore the entire project.

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Embedded thumbnail for Configuring Autorecognition
How To Work with Power Analyzer by Keysight •
Configuring Autorecognition

Before using the Power Analyzer by Keysight, it is important to configure certain parameters. In this video, we will demonstrate how to properly set up the software for auto-recognition.

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Embedded thumbnail for Adding Power Nets for Simulation
How To Work with Power Analyzer by Keysight •
Adding Power Nets for Simulation

One of the most important things when designing your PCB is to check and measure the quality of electrical power for your project. Power Analyzer by Keysight offers you the ability to simulate how power is distributed on your PCB. In this video, we will show you how to prepare power nets for simulation in Altium Designer.

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Embedded thumbnail for How to Use Transmission Lines in RF Design
How-To's •
How to Use Transmission Lines in RF Design

High frequency signals are carried on circuit boards via transmission lines. Learn the differences between standard 50 ohm impedance microstrip lines and coplanar transmission lines in this video. We also explore the best-use cases for coplanar transmission lines, how they impact loss and interference, dielectric thicknesses, and more.

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Embedded thumbnail for How to Reverse Engineer a PCB from Gerber Files
How-To's •
How to Reverse Engineer a PCB from Gerber Files

Have you ever done a reverse-engineering? In this video we walk you through the process how to prepare a PCB from Gerber files, using a variety of methods, including via CAMtastic in Altium Designer.

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Embedded thumbnail for How to Use Power Regulator Circuits in Series and Parallel
How-To's •
How to Use Power Regulator Circuits in Series and Parallel

In this tutorial video we show you two ways to get more power out of your power supply using power regulator circuits in series and in parallel.

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NEW
Embedded thumbnail for Measuring in the PCB
How-To's •
Measuring in the PCB

Altium Designer gives you fine grained control over how you measure object distances in the PCB. When spacing is such a critical aspect of board layout, this control is absolutely necessary. We'll show you how to utilize the measure distance command and measure selected objects, as well as how to measure tracks and faces of 3D bodies.

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Embedded thumbnail for Polygon: Polygon Creation
How-To's •
Polygon: Polygon Creation

Learn how to create polygon pours to ensure proper copper distribution on your board.

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Embedded thumbnail for How to work with cursors in the simulation results?
How-To's •
How to work with cursors in the simulation results?

Cursors are one of the most indispensable tools for modeling results. They do not require long study, are easy to use and give an instant answer to the main questions.

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Embedded thumbnail for 3D view control
How-To's •
3D view control

Learn how to use the 3D display mode of the PCB and learn to control the camera in this mode in this video.

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Embedded thumbnail for Query Language: How to Easily Create Expressions
How-To's •
Query Language: How to Easily Create Expressions

In this video the main tools which allow to simplify the process of building a query in Altium Designer will be considered. There are several such tools and each of them has its own limitations and peculiarities of use.

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Embedded thumbnail for PCB Classes overview
How-To's •
PCB Classes overview

Are there too many primitives on the board? Having trouble creating design rules? This video gives a brief overview of the classes of primitives that can be created on the board, as well as the possibilities for their further use.

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Embedded thumbnail for Creating a BGA Footprint with the Footprint Wizard
How-To's •
Creating a BGA Footprint with the Footprint Wizard

Altium Designer makes it easy to create a BGA footprint using our IPC compliant footprint wizard. We'll show you how easily you can create and modify a BGA footprint using the footprint wizard.

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Embedded thumbnail for How to work with Pad Classes on PCB?
How-To's •
How to work with Pad Classes on PCB?

Sometimes it is required to set different design rules for a different set of pads on the board. The easiest way is to use pad classes and in this video we'll show you how easy it is to create and apply them.

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Embedded thumbnail for How to work with multivariate calculations?
How-To's •
How to work with multivariate calculations?

Additional modes for obtaining temperature, parametric dependencies and probabilistic distribution by the Monte Carlo method are performed together with basic calculations and allow expanding the possibilities for analyzing design results.

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Embedded thumbnail for How to calculate Transient Analysis?
How-To's •
How to calculate Transient Analysis?

Transient Analysis simulates the reaction of a circuit over a period of time. It can be supplemented by Fourier Analysis and the use of Initial Conditions.

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Embedded thumbnail for BOM Comments
How-To's •
BOM Comments

Convenient interaction and coordination of the Active BOM with the help of comments is possible both from the web version of the project and from the Altium Designer between participants of the same and different roles.

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