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Essential DFM Tips for Aerospace Projects

Design for Manufacturing (DFM) is a crucial aspect of aerospace projects. This process ensures high-quality designs that meet the unique challenges of the aerospace industry, such as extreme conditions and stringent reliability standards. Learn more about essential DFM tips in our brand-new article.

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Wearable Design Project
Wearable Design Project - Part VII: PCB Layout part III

Check out the final installment of the video series on the Wearable Design Project. In this video, you will learn how to set the rigid and flex parts of the design, modify the board for the project, and complete the PCB routing. For a deeper dive into this project, you can find it on our Altium Community Workspace.

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New in Altium Designer 24
Optimize Connections and PCB Design with Wire Bonding

Experience our new wire bonding feature, designed to enhance connection integrity and improve PCB design efficiency. One of the main capabilities includes support for chip-up wire bonding configurations and easy validation of bond wiring in 3D view. Don’t miss this opportunity—participate in our Beta Program and be among the first engineers to explore this impressive feature.

Altium 365 New Website
Blog
Altium 365 now has its own website!

Discover everything you need to know about Altium 365 and experience our suite of applications for secure, seamless, and streamlined collaboration. Visit now to explore how to streamline your electronic product development.
 

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Altium Stories
Innovative Jewelry: Startup Uses Altium to Embed Electronics

Discover how Safety by Cilia transformed personal protection by utilizing Altium Designer and Altium 365 to create groundbreaking jewelry that also functions as a safety alarm. This device integrates GPS tracking, dual alarm options (both loud and silent), automatic audio recording, and rapid notification capabilities, all while maintaining an accessory that excels in both aesthetics and functionality.

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Wearable Design Project
Wearable Design Project - Part VI: PCB Layout part II

Join us for Part VI of the Wearable Design Project as Piet Callemeyn finalizes the PCB layout, focusing on rigid-flex design. Learn key strategies for optimizing your wearable tech design. Like, comment, and subscribe!

Blog
Altium Designer: Leading the Charge in PCB Design Innovation

In the dynamic field of electronics design, Altium Designer stands out as a pioneer, continuously advancing the boundaries of PCB (Printed Circuit Board) design. Discover the latest innovations in 3D-MID design, high-speed design, and interactive routing in this new article by David Marrakchi.

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Altium Stories
Super Capacitors Unlock the Future of Energy

In this brand new episode of Altium Stories, we invite you to explore how Skeleton Technologies is transforming numerous industries with their innovative graphene-based superbatteries. Their advanced electronics technology powers AI data centers, stabilizes electrical grids, and creates new energy opportunities, all while advancing us toward a net-zero future.

Blog
What Is Solder Mask Expansion and Which Value Should You Use?

Check out our new article explaining how to ensure sufficient pad area for soldering, manage misregistration tolerance, and maintain proper solder dams between components. It also highlights the role of collaboration with fabrication houses and the use of CAD tools in defining land patterns for advanced electronics designs.

Embedded thumbnail for Wearable Design Project - Part V: PCB Layout Part I
Wearable Design Project
Wearable Design Project - Part V: PCB Layout Part I

Join Piet Callemeyn in Part V of our wearable technology design series as he delves into the complexities of PCB layout for a wireless heart rate sensor. In this session, we will guide you through the initial steps of PCB layout preparation.

Blog
Pi.MX8 Project - Board Layout Part 3

We continue our exploration of the Pi.MX8 open-source computer module project. In this new installment, we focus on routing planning and then cover all the layers' routing with all the details you need to know if you want to prepare a similar project.

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Mixed Simulation Series
Mixed Simulation Pt.5: Power Loss Optimization & Sensitivity Analysis

Discover methods to reduce power loss and employ Sensitivity Analysis in Altium Designer to enhance circuit efficiency and robustness. This tutorial guides you through practical techniques and tools for optimizing power usage in your designs.

Blog
Mastering Blind and Buried Vias

Check our compilation of essential resources you'll need to use blind and buried vias successfully in an HDI PCB. In our brand new article, we present the main and most valuable information about this technology, which may not be new but is still highly useful in High-Density Interconnect projects.

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New in Altium Designer 24
Custom Pad Stack: Use Cases

Unlock the secrets of custom pad stacks in Altium Designer! This video tutorial takes you from basics to advanced techniques, covering pad creation, customization, and multi-layer pads. Enhance your PCB design skills with this comprehensive guide.

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Mixed Simulation Series
Mixed Simulation Pt. 4: Setting Up Power Measurements and Using Measurement Expressions

Part IV of our Constraint Manager Series is live! In this episode, we explore essential steps like setting up physical constraints, conducting layout checks, and organizing constraint sets for efficient PCB design management. Follow along to enhance your workflow and optimize your designs.

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Altium Stories
From Tragedy to Triumph: Personal Safety Made Beautiful

Safety by Cilia has developed a personal safety alarm disguised as jewelry, offering a personalized security solution. Discover how Altium’s solutions can help address the complexities of miniaturization and power management in a small form factor, as the team did.

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Blog
RF Power Amplifier Module PCB Design

RF power amplifiers can be found in many wireless products, often integrated into chipsets or modems. However, in certain specialized systems, you might require higher power output at a specific frequency. This necessitates a discrete amplifier circuit to deliver that power. In this article, we present an example project for a power amplifier that you can incorporate into your RF project.

Blog
Avoid GIGO in Your PCB Simulation Tools

Simulation tools are extremely useful for understanding electromagnetic behavior in a design. Learn more about how to avoid obtaining inaccurate results during your PCB simulation process.

Benefits of Ultra HDI
Blog
The Benefits of Ultra HDI

Learn more about the combination of using both flexible materials and ultra-HDI feature sizes in this article.

Blog
Concept Phase – Cooling and Airflow Part 1

Next step in our open-source laptop project is to explain how to design cooling and airflow. In this article, we can show you the first part of this process, such as airflow concept, fan measurement and clearance.

Harness Design
Blog
Create Connections with Harness Design

Many modern electronics have multiple boards, and connecting those different boards and systems together are harnesses. Learn more about how Altium Designer can help you create harnesses for your own multi-board designs here.

Blog
Nucleo Shields Multi-Board Design

Learn how easy it is to create multi-board projects. This practical project article covers the reasons for breaking larger boards into sub-assemblies and explores the various connection options available between sub-assembly boards.

Blog
Analog Solar Tracker Project

In this article you can learn about light sensors while building an analog solar panel tracking system. This open-source project covers multi-channel design, window comparators, driving motors, and photosensors.

Blog
Concept Phase – Initial CAD Design

We are continuing our journey through the open-source laptop project. This article explains an initialization of CAD design process from the early concept and brainstorming phase.

Blog
High-Speed PCB Design Tips

Essential tips for high-speed PCB designs, and when you need to start being concerned about how and where you route your traces.

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Embedded thumbnail for How to Validate Links Between Components and Footprints
How-To's
How to Validate Links Between Components and Footprints

Before importing or updating data from the circuit to the board, you must first verify that all components of the circuit are associated with Footprint. Watch this video to learn how to validate the links between your schematic components and footprints.

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How to work with Rooms
How to use Copy Room Format

Rooms allow you to use rules on specific areas of your design. This helps immensely with properly defining trace widths and hole sizes for specific components. We’ll show you how easy it is to assign rules to specific rooms in the PCB.

Embedded thumbnail for How To Do Versioning And Releases by Robert Feranec and Michal Faruga
Discovering Altium 365
How To Do Versioning And Releases by Robert Feranec and Michal Faruga

Meet Robert Feranec in an educational video on version control, project history, comments, comparison and other features in Altium Designer 

Active Links in Text
What's New in 22.6
Active Links in Text

You can now specify active links to components and nets within a text frame object on a schematic. This handy navigation aid makes it much easier not only to read the document, but also to work with it.

Active Links in Text
What's New in 22.6
文本中的活动链接

您现在可以在原理图上的文本框对象中,指定指向元件和网络的活动链接。使用此导航辅助工具,即可轻松读取和处理文档。

Multifunctional Pins
What's New in 22.6
Multifunctional pins

You will often see that modern ICs consist of multi-functional pins. In this latest version of Altium Designer it has become far easier and much more convenient to work with such components.

Multifunctional Pins
What's New in 22.6
多功能引脚

常见的现代IC均由多功能引脚组成。在最新版Altium Designer中,我们能够更加轻松、方便地处理此类元件。

Embedded thumbnail for Using Rooms in Rules
How to work with Rooms
Using Rooms in Rules

Rooms allow you to use rules on specific areas of your design. This helps immensely with properly defining trace widths and hole sizes for specific components. We’ll show you how easy it is to assign rules to specific rooms in the PCB.

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How to create a Schematic Symbol
Creating a Schematic Symbol: Dealing with Power Pins

Multiple schematic symbols often require the use of multiple power and ground pins. We’ll show you the difference between hidden and visible power pins, and the various methods you can use to use them in your design however it works best for you.

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How-To's
Allowing Permanent Display of Some Layers

This video demonstrates how to permanently display some layers in the PCB using the View configuration panel.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating Rooms in the PCB
How to work with Rooms
Creating Rooms in the PCB

If you want to create a room manually in the PCB or have them generated for the Schematic, Altium Designer allows you to create custom rooms. We’ll show you how to hand draw different rooms, how to create rooms by defining them through the room definition, and how to have them generated for the schematic and pushed through to the PCB by the Engineering Change Order.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a Schematic Symbol - Placing Designators and Comments
How to create a Schematic Symbol
Creating a Schematic Symbol - Placing Designators and Comments

Placing your designator or comments can be done automatically, but that doesn’t mean they’re visible. We’ll walk you through how to make them visible and position them correctly no matter what orientation your symbol is with automatic positioning.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a Schematic Symbol: Adding Additional Parts
How to create a Schematic Symbol
Creating a Schematic Symbol: Adding Additional Parts

Altium Designer makes it easy to add additional parts to your schematic library. We’ll show you how through copying and configuring your new components through the Pin Editor and the properties panel.

Embedded thumbnail for Component Placement Control Using Rooms
How to work with Rooms
Component Placement Control Using Rooms

Rooms give you more control over how and where your components are placed in your PCB. We’ll show you how to use room properties to limit what is allowed in and out of a room using the room definition and custom queries.

Embedded thumbnail for How to work with Differential Pair Classes?
How to Work with Differential Pairs
How to work with Differential Pair Classes?

Modern boards can contain a large number of differential pairs. For convenience, they are combined into differential pairs classes. In this video, we'll walk you through how to create and apply a differential pair class. 

Embedded thumbnail for Adding Rooms from the Schematic
How to work with Rooms
Adding Rooms from the Schematic

Rooms can be added directly from the schematic sheet. From the schematic sheet they are pushed to the PCB. Here we'll look at the rooms and component classes generated by default in the schematic, how to add and configure rooms manually, and how to push them to the PCB.

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Webinar Preview
On-Demand Webinar
CoDesigner and MCAD Component Placement On-Demand Webinar

We design products not just PCBs requiring effective collaboration between MCAD and ECAD engineers. We need to consider how we can reduce the likelihood of errors when placing critical design components. Component placement in the context of enclosures can be easily handled in an MCAD environment while it is more difficult to achieve in the ECAD domain. 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.

On-Demand Webinar
Intelligent Supply Chain Webinar

Many factors can affect your supply chain. Currently, supply disruptions are being felt due to the effect of the Covid-19 Pandemic. In this webinar, learn how Concord Pro on Altium 365 can mitigate disruptions in your supply chain and help you stay on schedule and budget for your designs.

Altium Designer interface
On-Demand Webinar
Preparing your files for Fabrication Release

When you’re done creating a new board, it’s time to send your design data to the manufacturer. Before releasing your designs, you’ll want to make sure that everything is ready and works as intended. In this informative webinar, we’ll review some of the must-have checks before sending your output data for fabrication.

Stackup Manager in Altium
On-Demand Webinar
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.

Part Search in Altium Designer
On-Demand Webinar
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.

Preparing your files for Fabrication Release
On-Demand Webinar
Preparing your files for Fabrication Release

When you’re done creating a new board, it’s time to send your design data to the manufacturer. Before releasing your designs, you’ll want to make sure that everything is ready and works as intended. In this informative video, we’ll review some of the must-have checks before sending your output data for fabrication.

Article preview
On-Demand Webinar
Efficient PCB Routing Using Gloss and Retrace Tools

The primary goal of your traces is to carry signals throughout your board without losses. To do this properly, you must familiarize yourself with the requirements for signals on the printed circuit board and how to optimize the topology of the board in terms of signal integrity. We will analyze the most popular routing cases applicable for using the Gloss and Retrace tools in Altium Designer to optimize your signal integrity.

Article preview
On-Demand Webinar
Length Matching in High Speed Buses

With ever increasing speeds in high-speed data systems comes a couple of PCB layout challenges. High-speed busses like DDR, VME, PCIe just to mention a few can all reach data transfer speeds that require strict timing with very tight tolerances, thereby leaving very little slack in the PCB layout. Watch this on-demand webinar to learn why it's imperative to match track lengths in high-speed data systems and differential signals. You’ll see how to properly define PCB length matching and time delay constraints, and how to effectively route high-speed signals in Altium Designer®.

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.

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.

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. 

Webinar slides
On-Demand Webinar
Designing PCBs 5x Faster Despite the Pandemic | Customer Success | Kinetic Vision

Kinetic Vision, a Cincinnati-based design, engineering, and development firm, is an innovator’s one-stop shop for transforming even the wildest ideas into real products. The company’s design approach keeps everything in-house, including industrial design, mechanical, and electrical design, as well as, engineering, hardware/software development, machine learning, and sometimes even short-run production. Watch this webinar to learn how Kinetic Vision uses the Altium 365 platform to enable a connected and frictionless PCB design experience, increasing their productivity 5 times even

Altium Designer interface
On-Demand Webinar
One-Stop Design Team Configuration

A heavy focus is usually put on managing your design data, but what about managing your design team? A mismanaged design team can lead to a disorganized and inaccurate design library and data. Watch this webinar to see how Altium 365 can help you to organize users into access restricted groups, manage design and designer access rights, avoid design conflicts when multiple members are working on the same design, and standardize your entire project using templates

SolidWorks interface
On-Demand Webinar
ECAD MCAD Capabilities For Today’s Most Demanding Designs

Working between the Electronic and Mechanical design domains brings unique challenges. ECAD and MCAD tools have different design objectives and have evolved down different paths, and so have the way they store and manage their design and project data. To successfully design these products, the designers must fluidly pass design changes back and forth between the ECAD and MCAD domains beyond outdated file exchanges.

Altium Designer Constraints Editor
On-Demand Webinar
Getting Started with Design Rules and Constraints

Getting started with design rules can sometimes be a difficult task, but it doesn’t have to be. Altium Designer has added a new design rules user interface along with a new way to define rules, while not compromising past methods. Now, rules and constraints have a design-centric view rather than a rules-centric view which allows for easier visualization and is less prone to error. Watch this video to learn how you can best utilize the improved Rules 2.0 design rule interface.

Altium Designer interface
On-Demand Webinar
ECAD-MCAD Collaboration for Improved Product Development

Working between the Electronic and Mechanical design domains brings unique challenges. ECAD and MCAD tools have different design objectives and have evolved down different paths, and so has the way they store and manage their design and project data. Watch this video to learn about seamless ECAD/MCAD Collaboration on the project, how to comments for other design teams and how to review, Approve or Reject design changes from your mechanical engineer.