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Altium DbLibs and Electronic Components in the Cloud with Altium Designer 20.1

Altium’s DbLib support is one of the oldest and most loved features of Altium Designer for managing electronic components and their data. They’ve been present in the software world since before I could fathom the existence of Ohm’s law. Altium 20.1’s new Component Sync feature allows you to synchronize virtually any database or database Library with Altium 365, taking advantage of both approaches strengths.

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Success Stories
From The Beatles to the PCB - VOX Story

Dave Clarke, R&D manager for VOX, walks us through his story of designing VOX amplifiers for electronic instruments as well as his love for music and electronics design. Be sure to subscribe to the Altium Stories channel to stay updated on new videos. Altium LLC is accelerating the pace of innovation through electronics. From individual inventors to multinational corporations, more PCB designers and engineers choose Altium software to design and realize their ideas. 

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What is a Schematic Netlist for Your PCB?

If you’ve created your next great schematic, there is a lot going on behind the scenes in your design software. A schematic netlist is one of the central pieces of information that will be used in multiple features in your design software to create a real PCB. Your schematic netlist provides both electrical connectivity information, and reflects the functional structure of your design data in a single set of data.

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How to Select an Inductor for a Buck Converter

An SMPS is one of those quiet (yet electrically noisy) devices that makes your favorite electronics run smoothly. Among the numerous DC-DC converter topologies, a buck converter finds plenty of uses for stepping down the input voltage to a lower level while providing high efficiency power conversion. A common question around component selection for these power converters is how to select an inductor for a buck converter. The goal in working with an inductor and other components in a buck converter is to limit power loss to heat and while minimizing current ripple.

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US Department of Transportation Seeking Alternatives to GPS

GPS-capable devices range from your phone to your smartwatch; simply type in your destination and follow the directions. Simple, right? According to the Washington Post, we should all stop using GPS as it’s ruining the navigation centers of our brains. Despite the neurological effects on perception and judgment, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) aims to find alternatives to GPS to provide redundancy.

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Bluetooth 5.1 SoC vs. Module: Which is Best for Your Design?

The list of features available in Bluetooth just got a little longer since the release of Bluetooth 5.1. If you want to incorporate a Bluetooth 5.1 SoC into your new product, you have two primary options for bringing this component into your board. The first is as an SoC that mounts to your board just like any other component. The other option is to bring a module into your new board—directly onto the surface layer. Here’s what you need to know about a Bluetooth 5.1 SoC or module in your next IoT product.

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USB Power Delivery for Your Next Project

Since its introduction in the late 90s, the USB standard has never ceased to grow in popularity. There has been a growing trend toward USB being a power delivery interface with data, rather than a data interface that can supply power, as the 1.0 specification originally intended. To supply the increasing thirst for power over USB, the USB 3.0 Spec with Type-C began implementing the Power Delivery standard, which you should consider using for your next electronics project.

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Circuit Board Design for In-Circuit Testing

There are many types of circuit board tests available in electronics manufacturing today, each having unique goals and characteristics. This article presents guidelines at the design level (schematic and layout) to enable the use of in-circuit testing (ICT) fixtures to verify proper component assembly. These simple test fixtures allow your board to be tested as its assembled, which helps identify and remove failed boards from your production run.

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Creating PCB Mounting Holes

Our PCB must somehow be assembled into the final drone assembly. This will be achieved by attaching our PCB to the motherboard connector and by special mounting racks, which requires precise positioning of the two mounting holes on the PCB.

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Planning for the Future with Cirris Systems and Altium

Technological advancements have been a hallmark of the past few decades, from the widespread adoption of internet technology to the smartphones and wireless devices we rely on every day to stay connected. Orlan Thatcher, Board Layout Specialist at Cirris Systems, could never have predicted the demand their services would generate. The company struggled with six different software platforms before switching to Altium Designer.

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Working with PCB Keepouts

When working in the PCB, there may be specific areas that you would want to prevent the presence of certain objects, such as vias, tracks or copper regions. All of this can be realized in Altium Designer by using the Keepouts feature.

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An Introduction to NFC

I used to work in a research lab that worked primarily with RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) and NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, particularly for the agriculture industry and cattle identification. These were very specialized fields; however, the lab also worked on projects which involved retail and various other applications for NFC. It’s an amazing technology that you might be using every day without thinking about it - building access to your mobile phone payments, for instance. 

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Editing Your PCB Geometry with MCAD Tools

You need to define your PCB geometry in the context of your enclosure. If your board cannot physically be assembled into the final product, it doesn't matter how well laid out it is electrically. This webinar focuses on how the MCAD CoDesigner allows you to edit your PCB in the context of a higher-level assembly, allowing you to respect the relevant mechanical constraints.

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The PCB Fabrication Process — what Every Design Engineer Needs To Know, Part 2

In Part 1 of this article, I described the first steps that occur during the PCB fabrication process. They detailed the inner layer processing effort as well as the efforts that take place during the transition from inner layer processing to lamination. This part of the article will provide a detailed description of the lamination, drilling and plating processes.

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The PCB Fabrication Process—What Every Design Engineer Needs To Know, Part 1

There are still a number of designers - perhaps most of them - who have never toured a PCB fabrication facility. They are also unaware of the various steps that occur during the fabrication process. The purpose of this article is to describe those steps and what transpires in each of them. Part 1 of this article focuses on inner layer processing and the steps that are done prior the lamination process.

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Webinar "8 Reasons to Store Your Components in Altium 365"

Working with local libraries seems like a simple solution, but we often don’t take into account the added time spent maintaining libraries and sharing them between team members. This webinar showcases the advantages of component storage in Аltium 365 to resolve the issues of local libraries and component management.

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Bridging the Gap Between Designers and Customers

Every piece of electronic equipment starts with a great idea. Transforming great ideas into real, physical products takes a team of talented individuals and multiple companies coming together to make everything from the internal components to the external hardware. Paul Payen de la Garanderie, Founder and Owner of AW Audio, an engineering services company based in France, understands these challenges very well. With an extensive background in the Audio/Visual industry, Paul has had to work with multiple companies over the years, from small start-ups to celebrated AV firms.

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Additive PCB Manufacturing: The Vaccine for Electronics Supply Shocks?

At this time, at least a quarter of the world’s population is under quarantine, with workers unable to go to offices or factories, leading to fundamental disabling of the world economy. The electronics industry is suffering greatly as well, dealing with a supply shock from factories shutting down in Southeast Asia, to demand-side shocks from Western markets literally shutting down. Now it is the electrical engineers taking the lead with additive PCB manufacturing.

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Webinar "6 Steps to Master Project Storage"

Altium 365 provides a secure cloud platform to store all of your design files in a single place so you can share them with anyone and access them from anywhere. This webinar discusses the advantages of placing, storing, and working with projects in Altium 365.

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AI Vision with the Kria KV260 Vision AI Starter Kit

Discover AI-driven vision capabilities with the Kria KV260 Vision AI Starter Kit, presented by Ari Mahpour. Ideal for prototyping vision solutions, this kit offers an accessible entry point into advanced AI applications.

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Wire Bonding in Altium Designer

The Wire Bonding in Altium Designer article highlights how Altium Designer 25’s wire bonding feature streamlines complex designs for advanced assemblies like 3D stacked dies and RF modules. This tool enhances efficiency and precision, catering to modern electronic design needs.

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Optimize PCB Design with Integrated BOM and CAD Systems

Discover how integrating BOM management and CAD systems can streamline your PCB design process in this insightful article. Learn how combining these tools enables smoother collaboration, reduces errors, and improves design efficiency, helping you optimize your workflows from concept to manufacturing.

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The Essential Guide to Through-Hole Resistors

Resistors are fundamental components in electronic circuits, essential for controlling current and voltage. This article explores their basic principles, types, and key applications, helping you understand their crucial role in electronics.

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Avoiding Costly Delays: Essential Tips for PCB Designers

Efficient PCB design is crucial for avoiding costly delays in product development. This article offers practical tips and best practices for PCB designers to streamline their workflows, minimize errors, and ensure timely project completion.

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Mastering EMI Control in PCB Design: Component Placement for EMC

In the second article of the "Mastering EMI Control in PCB Design" series Dario Fresu explores how effective component placement can reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI) in printed circuit boards. He highlights strategies such as board segregation and careful management of high-speed signals and their harmonics to ensure signal integrity and minimize emissions.

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Signal Integrity Principles based on Altium Designer 24

Check out this article where Rafał Stępień dives into the essentials of maintaining signal integrity in high-speed digital systems. Discover key techniques like controlling signal reflections, reducing crosstalk, and designing differential pairs in Altium Designer 24 to ensure reliable and efficient PCB performance.

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Launch of Requirements & Systems Portal in Altium 365

The Requirements & Systems Portal is now live in Altium 365! Engineers can write, manage, and verify requirements within the Altium 365 workspace. You can link your requirements directly to schematics and PCB designs to ensure all engineers are working with the latest data. Request access today!

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Favorite Tools for BOM Review

Check out our article, where Lawrence Romine shares his top tools for conducting efficient Bill of Materials (BOM) reviews in PCB design. It highlights key features in Altium 365, Octopart, and ActiveBOM that help engineers avoid unsourceable components and streamline procurement.

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Generic Components
What's New in 22.3
通用元件

从产生创意到变为实物所需的路程将越来越短。新功能将有助于缩短进行原理图设计所需的时间。

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DFM and Fabrication Cost/Time Constraints
Designing a Silkscreen

The silkscreen layer allows you to add text and extra detail that will appear in your final designed board. We'll show you how to get started and what to look for when creating a silkscreen.

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How to work with Variants
Types of Component Variations

Altium Designer allows you to implement several different types of component variations. We’ll show you the differences between fitted, modified parameters, not fitted, and alternate Part variations, as well as how to add and manage these variations for your design.

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Query Language
Query Language: Basic Concept Part III

Often the criterion for searching certain objects in Altium Designer is matching parameters to some string (text) values. Learn from this video how to use substitution symbols in queries and increase your productivity when working on projects

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DFM and Fabrication Cost/Time Constraints
Solder Mask Expansion and Minimum Sliver

Using the solder mask expansion and the minimum solder mask sliver rules, you can make sure your solder mask layer doesn’t interfere with any of your exposed copper and is manufacturable.

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Query Language
Query Language: Basic Concept Part II

Do you want to learn how to make more complex queries consisting of several commands? This video is about auxiliary operators that exist in the Altium Designer query language, and how to combine and use them together.

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DFM and Fabrication Cost/Time Constraints
Teardrops for DFM

If you need to increase the width to any primitive, but need to maintain manufacturability, you can use teardrops. We’ll show you how to create a teardrop and specify the shape and size.

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How to work with Variants
Creating a New Design Variant

You can create variants and allow various changes to your design while maintaining all other versions in Altium Designer. We’ll show you how to create new variants using the variant manager and what you need to know to configure your variants correctly.

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Query Language
Query Language: Basic Concept Part I

In this video you will learn types of query language commands and what they can be used for.

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DFM and Fabrication Cost/Time Constraints
Configuring the Vias Annular Ring

The minimum dimension from the wall of the aperture to the edge of the pad is called an annular ring, and we can configure it with Altium Designer. We’ll show you how to get started and manage the annular ring in your design rules.

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RF PCB Design
Design RF PCB: RF Materials for PCB

Unlike an ideal environment, PCB materials introduce losses into the propagated signal. In this, we tried to figure out what materials to choose for RF printed circuit boards.

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DFM and Fabrication Cost/Time Constraints
Design for Manufacturing (DFM) Overview

During your design process, there are simple steps you can take to focus on Design for Manufacturing, or DFM. Altium Designer has a unique set of tools you can use to make the DFM process efficient ensuring manufacturability. In this overview video, we’ll talk about some of topics covered in upcoming videos about the DFM tools Altium Designer offers you.

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Working with MCAD CoDesigner extension
Fixing Broken Component Models

If you have a broken component model that won’t transfer properly from ECAD to MCAD, Altium Designer will help. We’ll show you how to use the Make PCB Library tool, the Extract 3D models tool, and your MCAD tool to correct broken components and make them usable.

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Query Language
Query Language: What is It For?

A PCB project contains many different objects. How to manage them? How to find the right ones quickly and efficiently? This video starts the series about query language. Learn the language commands and how to use them and expand your possibilities!

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Working with MCAD CoDesigner extension
Maintaining MCAD Constraints During Exchange

The Altium Designer MCAD Co-designer panel and extension give you a few tools to create a model that is unified during the ECAD MCAD Exchange. We'll show you how to make sure your models are transferred correctly across the ECAD MCAD exchange.

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RF PCB Design
Design RF PCB: Plane Connect -direct

It is bad practice to use thermal reliefs to connect pads in RF path circuits. We'll show you how to quickly and easily change pad-to-polygon connection style to direct connection.

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