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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!

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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.

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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.

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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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freeway in the background of the city
Blog
Designing for V2X Communication: Wireless Protocols and Standards

If you’re waiting for truly connected cars on a grand scale, there is still a massive amount of work to be done, both on the hardware and software sides. Connected cars can only become a widespread reality once the automotive industry and telecom carriers can decide which protocol will work best for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication. PCB designers will then need to step in to create these systems and fit them into a vehicular environment.

Everything You Need to Know About Stitching Vias
Blog
Everything You Need to Know About Stitching Vias

This one area of PCB design can be contentious among some designers as it is related to copper pour, which it is often stated is not needed in most designs. Regardless of your feelings about copper pour, stitching vias have important uses in PCBs at low frequencies and at high frequencies.

All About Box Build Assemblies
Blog
All About Box Build Assemblies

When you’re ready to manufacture a new device at production volume, there are many aspects of the product that must come together. The enclosure, cabling and connectors, embedded software/firmware, and of course the PCBA all have to be considered in totality. There is a quick way to get your product into a usable enclosure, complete with input power and cabling, and with a form factor that fits your PCBA. This overused route to a new product is a box build assembly. 

Ultra-HDI Technology is Not New
Blog
Ultra-HDI Technology is Not New

Printed circuit board fabricators have become skilled at manufacturing these technologies and also at understanding the reliability and producibility challenges associated with high-density-interconnect technology. Let’s look at where the PCB industry is at today. 

Today's PCB Designers Are Driving Electronics Product Design
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Today's PCB Designers Are Driving Electronics Product Design

What can the industry do to support PCB designers as they continue taking a more active role in product development? Here at Altium, there has been a progressive shift towards looking at the system level and creating tools that get designers more involved throughout the product development process. As the saying goes, over the wall engineering is over… today’s most successful products are built in a collaborative process.

Phased Array Antenna Design for 5G Applications
Blog
Phased Array Antenna Design for 5G Applications

As the 5G rollout progresses and researchers continue to discuss 6G, many new 5G-capable products operating in sub-GHz and mmWave bands are reaching the marketplace. Devices that will include a 5G-compatible front-end, whether small stations/repeaters or handheld devices, use phased arrays as high-gain antenna systems to provide high data throughput without losing range at higher frequencies.

IPC - Vias
Blog
IPC - Vias

Via protection is an important part of modern PCB design. It provides additional benefits in PCB manufacturing and assembly, increasing the number of acceptable products.

Power Integrity Analysis in Your PCB Design Software
Blog
Power Integrity Analysis in Your PCB Design Software

Power integrity problems can abound in modern PCBs, especially high-speed boards that run with fast edge rates. These systems require precise design of the PDN impedance to ensure stable power is always delivered throughout the system.

Schematic Compare
Blog
Schematic Compare

A design project doesn’t appear out of nowhere. The design process spreads over time, and project documents change. Schematic documents gradually become more complex, new functional blocks appear, and already finished parts can be modified and updated.

Embedded Capacitance Materials Overview
Blog
Embedded Capacitance Materials Overview

Capacitance is your friend whenever you need stable power integrity, which is why there is so much focus on decoupling capacitors. While these components are important and they can be used to provide targeted power integrity solutions to certain components, there is one specialty material used to supercharge capacitance in your PCB stackup or package substrate. 

How To Import Libraries and Manage Components With Altium 365
Blog
How To Import Libraries and Manage Components With Altium 365

The problems you can experience with components and libraries are endless. These problems are the most significant source of design issues and the biggest reason behind respins, costing companies untold amounts of lost profit annually.
If you want to have a better understanding of how to use Altium 365 to maintain a strong and centralized library that is free of problems and headaches, you may want to consider attending this lecture.

The High-Speed PCB Stackup Design Challenge
Blog
The High-Speed PCB Stackup Design Challenge

As much as we would like to build every high speed PCB perfectly, with ideal SI/PI/EMI characteristics, it isn’t always possible due to many practical constraints. Sometimes a stackup can be “good enough,” even for a high-speed PCB. This always comes from the need to balance engineering constraints, functional requirements, and the need to ensure signal and power integrity in a high-speed design, and finally to ensure compliance with EMC requirements.

How I Improved My Collaboration Efficiency with Altium 365
Blog
How I Improved My Collaboration Efficiency with Altium 365

Involving the whole team that will bring a product to completion early on in the development cycle is vital to efficient development. Design reviews with all the relevant parties are critical at each step of the design process, starting with high-level component selection, then through the schematic capture and PCB layout stages. 

Countersink and Counterbore
Blog
Countersink and Counterbore

Ergonomics and convenience are important issues when designing a printed circuit board and the device as a whole. A lot of Altium Designer tools are aimed at solving them. These include Countersink and Counterbore holes, which allow the use of various types of screws in the mounting holes of the board.

Migrating Data From Other Version Control Systems
Blog
Migrating Data From Other Version Control Systems

The development of electronic devices always involves the release of many different types of files. And these files are not static - they change as the project progresses. When filling a project with data, a user creates new files, modifies outdated files that have become irrelevant. Managing project data is a separate task, especially for large developments where several participants with different specializations are involved in the process.

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Embedded thumbnail for Assuring Your Board Is Large Enough to House All Components
How-To's
Assuring Your Board Is Large Enough to House All Components

This video covers how to make sure your board is big enough to house all your components.

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How-To's
How to Create an Interactive PDF of a Schematic Diagram

This video shows how to create an interactive PDF using the Smart PDF Wizard.

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How to Work with Draftsman
What is the Draftsman Document?

Once your PCB layout is finished it’s time for review. This is where the Draftsman Document and Altium Designer’s Draftsman Editor comes in.

Embedded thumbnail for Adding Project Modules to a Multi-board Schematic
How to work with Multiboard
Adding Project Modules to a Multi-board Schematic

If you’re using multiple PCBs in your Multi-board design, Altium Designer allows you to add existing projects directly to your schematic with modules. We’ll show you how to quickly and efficiently add these projects to your Multi-board design.

Embedded thumbnail for Checking for Creepage in High Voltage Designs
How-To's
Checking for Creepage in High Voltage Designs

High voltage devices have leakage currents that propage over the surface of the board. In such devices, it's important to consider not only the standard gap between the two topological elements, but also the shortest possible path between them, taking into account cut-outs and holes. With Altium Designer 20, you can check for creepage using the new creepage distance rule.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating BGA Footprints with the Footprint Wizard
How to create a PCB Footprint
Creating BGA Footprints 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.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Remove Unused Pad Shapes
How-To's
How to Remove Unused Pad Shapes

Unused pad shapes can cause distortion among other problems so it is best to exclude them from your designs. This video shows how to remove unused pad shapes.

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How to work with Layer Stack Manager
Stackup Presets and Templates

In this video, we will learn how to apply predefined layer stacks to the board, as well as how to save the layer stack file as a template.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a PCB Footprint Assembly Drawing
How to create a PCB Footprint
Creating a PCB Footprint Assembly Drawing

If you need to create an assembly drawing of your PCB Footprint for your outjob files we can show you how in Altium Designer. We’ll walk through all the different options for your assembly drawing in your Draftsman document, how to create your assembly drawing and assign it designators.

Embedded thumbnail for Using the ActiveBOM
How-To's
Using the ActiveBOM

Using the ActiveBOM: The Bill of Materials (BOM) contains a list of all the components with their designators, part numbers, values, and other parameters. An ActiveBOM manages the mapping from the design component (part) to the part that is purchased. This video describes how to use the ActiveBOM document to create an up-to-date list of components needed for your project.

Embedded thumbnail for Using Back Drills in your Stackup
How to work with Layer Stack Manager
Using Back Drills in your Stackup

In this video, we will learn about Back Drilling technology, how to set up back drilling using the layer stack manager, and how to set up the Stub Length sizes for back drilling by specifying applicable nets using the Design Rules Editor.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Customize The Properties Panel
How-To's
How to Customize The Properties Panel

How to Customize The Properties Panel: This video will go over how to customize the look and feel of the properties panel in Altium Designer. By being able to personalize your workspace you can greatly improve your efficiency

Embedded thumbnail for How to Create and Use Impedance Profiles
How to work with Layer Stack Manager
How to Create and Use Impedance Profiles

Using the Altium Designer Layer Stack Manager, we will show how to create impedance profiles for transmission lines and how to apply them to the circuit board using the PCB Rules and Constraints Editor.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a PCB Footprint Courtyard
How to create a PCB Footprint
Creating a PCB Footprint Courtyard

The courtyard is an essential piece when you want to create a PCB Footprint in Altium Designer. We’ll talk about what a courtyard is, how to create a courtyard, and how to format a courtyard correctly for your PCB footprint.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Edit Existing Tracks in Altium Designer
How-To's
How to Edit Existing Tracks in Altium Designer

This new design rule flags a violation when the creepage distance across non-conductive surface and edge regions of the board, between the targeted signals, is equal to or less than the specified Creepage distance.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a PCB Footprint Silkscreen Overlay
How to create a PCB Footprint
Creating a PCB Footprint Silkscreen Overlay

When creating a PCB footprint in Altium Designer creating a silkscreen overlay is an important requirement. We’ll go over the standards for creating a silkscreen overlay for a footprint and the steps to creating one, such as constructing lines and measuring distance of objects and primitives.

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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.