News & Updates
Blog
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PCB Via Current-Carrying Capacity: How Hot is Too Hot?
One common question from designers is current-carrying capacity of conductors in a PCB. 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. Let’s dig into the current state of thermal demands on vias in PCBs and how they compare to internal and external PCB traces.
On-Demand Webinar
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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.
Blog
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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.
Blog
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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™.
Blog
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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.
On-Demand Webinar
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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.
Blog
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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.
Blog
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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?
Blog
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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.
Blog
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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.
Blog
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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.
Blog
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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.
Blog
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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.
Blog
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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.
Blog
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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.
Blog
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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.
Blog
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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.
Blog
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Apr 27, 2020
Introduction to High Speed PCB Designing: How to Eliminate Crosstalk
Crosstalk on your PCB layout can be disastrous. If not corrected, crosstalk can cause your finished circuit board to either not work at all, or it may be plagued by intermittent problems. Let’s take a look at what crosstalk is and what you can do to prevent it.
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