News & Updates
Blog
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Recover Conductor Losses By Clearing Your PCB Ground Layer
Controlled impedance routing at high frequencies is difficult enough, and it's important to make sure that you stay within your loss budget on long routes or in lossy media. When you have to route a long trace or a long differential pair to a connector or another component, what can you do if you're reaching the end of your loss budget? In this article, we’ll take a look at the skip reference routing method and explain how it can help recover some loss budget in a lossy interconnect.
On-Demand Webinar
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Mastering The Layer Stack Manager
What most people don’t seem to grasp is that every aspect of the PCB is critical. It all plays a significant part in the operation of the final product. The layer stack is no different. We need to keep in mind materials and the intricacies therein, including thickness, weave, dielectric constants, and more. A proper layer stack is needed for each and every design, so it's important to know how to navigate the layer stack manager and all of its features.
Blog
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Announcing SOC 2 Type 1 Certification for Altium 365
We are pleased to announce that Altium 365 is officially SOC 2 Type 1 certified. System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 is a widely recognized attestation of security compliance defined by the AICPA and is considered the standard for ensuring data security and operational maturity. A SOC 2 certification provides valuable information for companies to assess the quality of the security provided by a service such as Altium 365.
Blog
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Improving Supply Chain Success with BOM Management
It’s no secret that component shortages have become more frequent this year. Companies will continue to grapple with supply chain challenges into 2022 and beyond. The impact of manufacturing delays can be substantial if a part is not available. Delays occur and sales plans get put on hold. It can also be very expensive and risky to replace parts from multiple sources. Fortunately, many shortages can be avoided by introducing proactive supply chain practices.
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Overview of PCB/PCBA Reliability and Failure Analysis
Reliability testing and failure analysis of a PCB/PCBA go hand-in-hand; when designs are stressed to the limit, their failure modes need to be determined through thorough inspection and analysis. To get started on this topic, it’s important to understand the qualification aspects that will govern your bare board design and the PCBA. We’ll look at the various dimensions of PCB/PCBA reliability, as well as some of the standard failure analysis techniques used to identify potential design change requirements.
Blog
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When Do PCB Power Plane Resonances Occur?
By now, designers should be aware of some important behavior involved in power delivery to components in a PCB, particularly for digital components. All digital components produce and manipulate wideband signals, where the frequency content theoretically extends up to infinite frequency. As such, some radiation may propagate through your PCB, leading to resonant behavior that is not observed on the power rail.
On-Demand Webinar
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How to Overcome PCB Component Availability Problems
Supply shortages have become and continue to be a common problem, especially when it comes to the world of electronics. It's hard to get all the different components for our boards. Heck! It's even tough to get the board themselves too! When electronic components become obsolete or out of stock, design and production can suffer lengthy delays. With current supply chain delays and with an average of 15 end-of-life notices issued every day, obtaining the parts you need is a challenge.
Blog
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How to Choose PCB Plating for Your Finished Board
Once your board passes through the standard PCB fabrication process, the bare copper in your PCB will be ready for the application of a surface finish. PCB plating is applied to protect any copper in your PCB that would be exposed through the solder mask, whether it’s a pad, via, or other conductive element. In this article, I’ll run over the different PCB plating material options and their advantages in your PCB.
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What is the PCB Supply Chain?
The PCB supply chain encompasses multiple components, raw materials, and the PCB itself. PCBs and PCB assemblies are often the most technically complex components that are purchased for electronic assemblies and products. The complexity of modern PCBs leads to several challenges for a supply chain management team that may be significantly different when compared with other commodities the team manages. In this brief guide, we'll look in-depth at the PCB supply chain, and specifically what falls within the purview of a procurement and supply chain management team.
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A Guide to Mode Conversion, Its Causes, and Solutions
On interconnects, such as board-to-board connections or cascaded transmission line arrangements, you have an important EMC compliance metric that is sometimes overlooked. This is mode conversion, which can be visualized in an S-parameter measurement for differential and common-mode signal transmission. In this article, we’ll look at a short overview of mode conversion in high-speed design with some examples from common differential standards.
Blog
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PCB Trace and Pad Clearance: Low vs. High Voltage
High voltage/high current designs carry safety requirements which need to be met by designers. Similarly, high speed designs need to have suppressed crosstalk in order to ensure signal integrity. The key design aspects that relate to both areas are your PCB trace clearance and pad clearance values. These design choices are critical for balancing safety, noise suppression, and manufacturability.
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Getting Through PCB DFM
In this article, we’ll discuss the key design features to implement, and steps to take prior to fabrication that will help prevent some DFM process pain.
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Level Up Your Design Skills - Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide Update
We are happy to announce the new update of our Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide. Whether you are new to Altium Designer or you want to brush up on some topics, the Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide will take you from a beginner to a master in PCB design.
This is only the beginning! This guide will be updated with new information based on user feedback. Let’s first go over the contents of the guide.
Blog
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Modeling Copper Foil Roughness in Altium Designer's Impedance Profiler
With the new layer stack manager in Altium Designer®, you can now include copper foil roughness factors directly in your impedance calculator. This is quite easy to do in the layer stack manager, but it begs the question: what exactly is the copper roughness factor? Which value should be used for your interconnects?
Blog
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High-Speed Signal Routing: The 5 Important Constraints
After you capture your schematic as an initial layout and create an initial component arrangement, it’s time to define your routing constraints. Doing this early will allow your DRC engine to spot rules violations before you finish your layout. Likewise, you’ll be able to modify the default rule set to meet your layout requirements. Here are the important routing constraints you’ll need to check before you start routing your board.
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CoDesigner and MCAD Component Placement On-Demand Webinar
Learn how to place components from the MCAD side and synchronize them with Altium Designer ECAD models, designators, and sourcing data to simplify your design process.
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How to Create a PCB Manufacturing Cost Estimation
Some manufacturers have very convenient PCB manufacturing cost estimation calculators you can use, but the real costs depend on a number of factors. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re producing your own boards, or you are managing manufacturing, testing, and delivery for a new project, it’s your job to help clients understand the primary cost drivers for new boards. Here’s how you can get an estimate of your fabrication costs, both for local and overseas manufacturers.
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PCB Mountable Connectors: SMD vs. Through-hole
Selecting a connector is as much an art as it is a science. The artistic side is all about aesthetics and satisfying clearances, while the scientific side is all about signal integrity. For PCB mountable connectors, you’ll need to choose between surface-mounted or through-hole connectors, and you’ll need to consider how each type affects signal integrity in your application. Here’s what you need to think about beyond the standard connector specifications.
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PCB Via Current-Carrying Capacity: How Hot is Too Hot?
Trace and via current-carrying capacity are legitimate design points to focus on when designing a new board that will carry high current. The goal is to keep conductor temperatures below some appropriate limit, which then helps keep components on the board cool.
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How to Maximize Copper in Your PCB Design: The Pros and Cons of Copper Pouring Versus Placing
There is a saying in copper pour PCB design, “Copper is free.” It means a PCB editor designer must think in reverse. A board starts off as solid copper, and the copper you don’t want is removed. It is faster to build, less consumptive, and less expensive to make a board that is mostly copper as compared to the same size board that is mostly bare. Picking the correct technique will make the difference between an effortless or frustrating experience.
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Top 5 PCB Design Guidelines Every PCB Designer Needs to Know
What’s the key to designing a board that’s realistic on paper and in physical form? Let’s explore the top 5 design guidelines that you need to know to design your next manufacturable, functional and reliable PCB.
Blog
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May 14, 2020
How to Highlight Nets in Altium Designer to Simplify Schematic and PCB Designs
Highlighting nets will help you simplify your schematic and PCB design. In Altium , there are multiple options that enable you to leverage this capability to simplify the verification of connections and circuit paths and make sure that the design you send to your manufacturer accurately reflects the printed circuit board you need built.
Blog
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May 12, 2020
Keep Your Altium Designer PCB Layout in Line with Grids and Grid-Selection Shortcuts
The grid system in a printed circuit board design CAD system really is your friend, and if you haven’t taken the time to get properly introduced yet let me help you with that.
Blog
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May 7, 2020
How to Panelize Your PCBs Before Lunch with Altium Designer
Whether you have a slew of PCBs to mass produce for your customers or a handful of project boards you wish to prototype all in one simple swoop, panelization is an effective way to bring high amounts of efficiency to your production.
Blog
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May 5, 2020
Helpful Tips for Interactive Routing in Altium Designer
Before you jump into the software, you should know the types of things you’re going to want to look out for. Traces, connection lines, differential pair routing, and route paths can all affect the routing process of your board. Make sure that you’re equipped knowing, ultimately, what you want your board design to accomplish and furthermore, where you anticipate potential problem areas to be.
Blog
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May 1, 2020
Altium 365 + Altium Designer 20.1 Released Today - Work from Anywhere, Connect with Anyone
In our efforts to bring the best experience to the PCB design process, we are proud to announce the release of Altium Designer 20.1, Altium 365, and Altium NEXUS Client 3.1. This release enhances the design experience by bringing the convenience and benefits of the Altium 365 cloud platform to Altium Designer.
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