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PCB Design Basics for New Designers
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PCB Design Basics for New Designers

In this article, I’ll present some design basics that every new designer should follow to help ensure their design process is successful. Some of these points may challenge the conventional view of how circuit boards are constructed, but they are intended to help balance low noise signaling, manufacturability, and ease of solving a layout.

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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.

Selecting Materials for High Voltage PCB Design and Layout
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Selecting Materials for High Voltage PCB Design and Layout

High voltage PCBs are subject to certain safety and reliability concerns that you won’t find in most other boards. If your fabrication house specializes in high voltage PCBs and keeps materials in stock, they can likely recommend a material set, as well as a standard stackup you might use for certain voltage ranges and frequencies. If you need to choose your own materials, follow the tips below to help you narrow down to the right material set.

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Working with MCAD CoDesigner extension
Shaping the PCB in MCAD

Through the MCAD Co-designer in Altium Designer, you can collaborate with a mechanical engineer to shape the PCB in your MCAD tool and keep it updated in Altium Designer. We’ll show you how in Altium Designer and in your MCAD tool.

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How to work with Selection
Cross Select Mode

Cross Select Mode is a unique tool that allows for cross-selection of objects between the schematic and PCB thanks to the Altium Unified platform. This makes it easy to look for specific components, as well as take advantage of component placement tools.

Via tenting in PCB Layout
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When to Use Tented Vias in Your PCB Layout

There are some guidelines I see many designers implement as a standard practice, often without thinking about it. Some of these practices are misunderstood or implemented without best practices. Others are implemented without thinking about the potential problems. One of these is the use of tented vias, which is sometimes implemented in a PCB layout by default. Is this always the right practice?

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How to work with Selection
Tools for Efficient Selection

Efficient selection tools can make a difference in how long and how clean your design can be. Learn how to utilize the Edit Select Menu tools in Altium Designer to take control over your layout.

Capacitive load termination
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How to Impedance Match and Terminate Capacitive Loads

The idea of a purely capacitive load is something of a fallacy. Yes, capacitors exist, but all capacitors are non-ideal, and it is this deviation from a theoretical capacitance that determines how to impedance match a load that exhibits capacitive behavior. Let’s take a look at this important aspect of interconnect design and see what it really means to terminate a capacitive load.

Embedded thumbnail for Tools for Easily Selecting Objects in the PCB
How to work with Selection
Tools for Easily Selecting Objects in the PCB

Explore more than basic mouse movements by taking a look at the tools that Altium Designer has to offer for making selecting and moving objects in the PCB an easy task. This will increase your productivity and allow you to spend more time designing

Using Altium 365 Over Your Vanilla Version Control System
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Using Altium 365 Over Your Vanilla Version Control System

There are all sorts of version control systems out there that people have been using with their PCB design software. As discussed in Why Use a Version Control System, we looked at different options ranging for local hard drive storage to sophisticated online revisioning systems. In this article we will be reviewing the differences between a standard VCS and Altium 365.

Why Use a Version Control System in PCB Design
Blog
Why Use a Version Control System in PCB Design

Version Control Systems (VCS) have been around for many decades within the software world but can be surprisingly new to some folks in the electronics design industry. This article will cover what a VCS is, what it does, and why you should be using one for your PCB design projects.

IPC 6012 Class 3 Annular Ring
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Meeting Standards: IPC 6012 Class 3 Annular Ring

Designers often conflate leftover annular ring and pad sizes - they need to place a sufficiently large pad size on the surface layer to ensure that the annular ring that is leftover during fabrication will be large enough. As long as the annular ring is sufficiently large, the drill hit will not be considered defective and the board will have passed inspection. In this article, I'll discuss the limits on IPC-6012 Class 3 annular rings as these are a standard fabrication requirement for high-reliability rigid PCBs.

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Working with Polygons
How to Work with The Polygon Manager

It is important to have a high-level view of all polygons on the PCB design. The Polygon Manager lets you rename polygons, set their pour order, perform re-pouring or disable pouring on selected polygons, add/scope the polygon connection style and clearance design rules, and add polygon classes for selected polygons.

PCB fabrication notes
Blog
Decoding PCB Fabrication Notes

Sending a board out for fabrication is an exciting and nerve-wracking moment. Why not just give your fabricator your design files and let them figure it out? There are a few reasons for this, but it means the responsibility comes back to you as the designer to produce manufacturing files and documentation for your PCB. It’s actually quite simple if you have the right design tools. We’ll look at how you can do this inside your PCB layout and how this will help you quickly generate data for your manufacturer.

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How to Work with Differential Pairs
Assigning Impedance Profiles for Differential Pairs

When you assign an impedance profile to a differential pair you open up several options for control over your routes. We'll show you how to do just that, as well as how to fix errors that may pop up and how to create classes for differential pairs based on assigned impedance profiles.

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How-To's
How to Highlight or Select Net Connections in the PCB

We’ll show you how to highlight net selections so you can easily track where connections are made. We’ll show you how to hide and show nets, and how to use the view configuration and PCB panels to view and highlight nets across your design, and how to assign net colors in both the PCB and the schematic.

HDI PCB design and HDI PCB manufacturing process
Blog
Design Basics for HDI and the HDI PCB Manufacturing Process

As the world of technology has evolved, so has the need to pack more capabilities into smaller packages. PCBs designed using high-density interconnect techniques tend to be smaller as more components are packed in a smaller space. An HDI PCB uses blind, buried, and micro vias, vias in pads, and very thin traces to pack more components into a smaller area. We’ll show you the design basics for HDI and how Altium Designer® can help you create a powerful HDI PCB.

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How to Design a BGA
Remove Unused Via Pads

The Remove Unused Pad Shapes tool in Altium Designer gives you control over the via pads in your design. We’ll show you how to use it to increase the usable area of power and ground polygons, increase the density of conductors between hole rows, and fixing incorrect connections.

All About PCB Test Points
Blog
Is It Printed or a Component? All About PCB Test Points

Test points in your electronic assembly will give you a location to access components and take important measurements to verify functionality. If you’ve never used a test point or you’re not sure if you need test points, keep reading to see what options you have for test point usage in your PCB layout.

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How to Design a BGA
Tent Vias under BGA

When via are located close to component pads some soldering issues can arise, but this can be fixed with Tented vias. We’ll show you how to manually tent vias and how to tent vias through the Design Rules.

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History
Blog
What You Can Track in Your Altium Project History

When you’re working through a new PCB design project, and you need to keep track of your project revisions, Altium 365™ creates the ideal environment for collaborative PCB design and revision tracking. Once you upload your projects onto the cloud through the Altium 365 platform, Altium 365 creates a Git repository for your project. It allows you to make it available to collaborators through Altium Designer®. This includes a complete project history, which can be easily accessed by collaborators working on a complex project.

Quickly Compare Gerbers PCB
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Gerber Compare in Altium 365's Online Platform

The moment you push your Gerbers to a manufacturer for a DFM inspection, it can be a nerve-wracking experience waiting for a response. Before you receive your working boards, there will likely be some back-and-forth communication before your board hits the fabrication line. When manufacturers and designers need to resolve problems in Gerber files before fabrication, it helps to have a Gerber compare utility. The newest version of Altium Designer now offers this feature through the Altium 365 platform, giving everyone visibility into changes to Gerbers before fabrication.

Electric car charging
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California Bets on Electric Cars and Plans to Ban Gasoline Car Sales by 2035

No matter how you might feel about renewable energy and associated environmental issues, electric vehicles are becoming more mainstream and will become the primary mode of transportation in the future. For the engineering community, what’s much more interesting is how our power distribution and management infrastructure can support this shift to massive increases in the use of electricity on the grid. So what’s the rub for PCB designers?

BGA Chip
Blog
My Favorite Altium Designer Keyboard Shortcuts and Viewing Features

When you’re working through a complex PCB layout, it always helps to know the shortcuts you can use to stay productive. Altium Designer® keyboard shortcuts, and keyboard + mouse shortcuts, can help you easily walk through your PCB layout during design and as part of final checks during a design review. Here are some of my favorite keyboard shortcuts and viewing options that help me stay productive, and I hope they can do the same for you.

High-speed route
Blog
The IEEE P370 Standard for High Speed PCB Interconnects

High speed PCB interconnects have continued to remain an active challenge in modeling and simulation, particularly when dealing with broadband signals. The IEEE P370 standard is a step towards addressing the challenges faced by many designers in determining broadband S-parameters for high speed structures up to 50 GHz. Although this standard has been in the works since 2015, it finally passed board approval and appears as an active draft standard.

Memory stick
Blog
Class-D Amplifier Design and PCB Layout

Amplifiers can come in all shapes and sizes, depending on their bandwidth, power consumption, and many other factors. A Class-D amplifier design is normally used with high fidelity audio systems, and circuits for a Class-D amplifier are not too difficult to build in a schematic. If you’ve never worked with a Class-D amplifier or you’re looking for a fun audio project, follow along with this PCB layout.

RAM text
Blog
DDR5 vs. DDR6: Here's What to Expect in RAM Modules

Modern digital systems throw the digital electronics textbooks out the window, and high-speed DDR memories are a perfect example of the paradigm shift that occurs when you jump into IC and PCB design. With DDR5 still being finalized, and DDR6 now being discussed, designers who are already comfortable with DDR4 will need to consider how their design practices should adjust to accommodate the constant doubling of data speeds in these high-speed memory technologies.

Explaining the Impedance of the Crystal
Blog
Making the Most of Your Crystal Oscillator

In my experience, the somewhat vague information you might find in a typical crystal datasheet doesn’t enable an engineer to be wholly confident that their design expectations can be met. On the other hand, “blindly” adopting what the crystal datasheet says usually results in adequate frequency stability. If you want to get inside and uncover what is going on, you need to start thinking about the crystal as a phase-shifting network.

Routed PCB
Blog
How Antipads Affect Signal Integrity in Your Multilayer PCB

Antipads on vias and landing pads are a point of contention in modern PCB design, and the debate around the use of these elements in a multilayer PCB is framed as a binary choice. Like thermal reliefs, ground plane splits, and orthogonal routing, the debate around antipads on landing pads and vias is framed as an always/never choice. With today’s modern PCBs, it pays to understand the effects of antipads on signal integrity.

PCB with RF elements
Blog
How to Design a Microstrip to Waveguide Transition

RF structures can be complicated to design and layout, particularly because many RF systems lead double lives as digital systems. Getting an analog signal out of a component and into a waveguide for high isolation routing is not so simple as placing a microstrip or stripline coming off your source component. Instead, you need to create a special microstrip to waveguide transition structure to ensure strong coupling into and out of your waveguide.

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Blog
Managing PCB Polygon Pour and Copper Features in Complex Layouts

Layouts for complex electrical systems may need to make extensive use of copper pour to provide ground nets, power nets, shielding, and other copper structures for power and signal integrity. Backplanes, motherboards, RF products, and many other complex layouts will make use of copper pour and polygons that can’t be easily placed as custom components. The rules-driven design engine in Altium Designer® also ensures that any PCB polygon pour you place in your PCB layout will comply with clearance rules and will be checked against other electrical design rules.

Backplane printed circuit boards
Blog
High Speed Backplane Design and PCB Layout Tips

If you need to connect multiple boards into a larger system and provide interconnections between them, you’ll likely use a backplane to arrange these boards. Backplanes are advanced boards that borrow some elements from high speed design, mechanical design, high voltage/high current design, and even RF design.  They carry their own set of standards that go beyond the reliability requirements in IPC.

M2 Sata PCB
Blog
PCIe 5.0 Signal Integrity and Analysis

The upcoming Gen6 version of PCIe is pushing the limits of signal integrity for many computer systems designers. As with any high-speed signaling standard, signal integrity is a major design consideration, which requires the right set of design and analysis techniques. Rather than digging deep to find PCIe 5.0 signal integrity requirements from PCI-SIG, we’ve compiled the important points for today’s PCB layout engineers. Layout engineers should pay attention here as these design requirements will become more stringent in later PCIe generations.

Blog
Top 4 Time Wasters in PCB Design Collaboration

An essential aspect of project management is time management, especially when your design team is working remotely. Your time management strategy is team-based and individual, but time can easily get spent on important tasks when working as part of a team. So how can you streamline important collaboration tasks for your design team to increase productivity?

Woman work remotely
Blog
Sharing Inside and Outside Your Altium 365 Workspace

In these days of easily-available internet and quarantines, everyone is working remotely. It’s nice being able to spend time with family and regain control over your schedule, but keeping track of projects and revisions while securing user access feels like its own job. With the right set of project and data management tools, you can easily share your data with collaborators without tracking email chains.

Server storage
Blog
How Your Altium 365 Workspace Keeps You Organized

When I started using my Altium 365 Workspace for collaboration, I found I could make things run more smoothly when I kept things organized. However, I prevented any issues thanks to all the organization tools built into the Explorer panel within Altium Designer. Let’s take a look at how you can get the most value out of your Altium 365 Workspace in terms of organization and access management.

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Embedded thumbnail for Low-Pass Filter
Simulation in Altium Designer
Low-Pass Filter

Learn how to modify an op amp low-pass filter circuit for simulation. 

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How-To's
Design Reuse

If you need to shorten your time-to-market, reduce costs, and minimize errors in the design process. Then you need to make sure that you’re designing smarter, with design reuse blocks. Check out this demo to see how it works.

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Simulation in Altium Designer
Flyback Converter

Learn how to use transient analysis on an example flyback converter and handle basic errors during the simulation preparation. 

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How-To's
Back Drilling in Altium Designer

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 Distributed - Element Circuits in RF Design
How-To's
Distributed - Element Circuits in RF Design

The capacitance and inductance of Distributed-Element circuits are determined by the shape and location of different copper elements in the PCB layout, instead of being concentrated in one point in space. Learn how to work with these circuits in Altium Designer.

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How-To's
Collaborative Editing

Save time and minimize reworks while teaming up on a PCB design from anywhere in the world. Watch the video for a sneak preview of the new collaborative editing functionality.

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How To Work with Power Analyzer by Keysight
Exporting Results

After completing your simulation in Power Analyzer by Keysight, you will likely need to export some of the results for further analysis. In this video, we will show you how to prepare a report once the simulation is done.

Embedded thumbnail for Plane Connect - Direct in RF Design
How-To's
Plane Connect - Direct in RF Design

Designing high-frequency circuit boards requires a sharp eye toward maintaining signal integrity. Some signal connections are more prone to interruption than others. In this video, you can learn how Altium Designer's Polygon Connect Design Rule and the Thermal Relief option can help in the PCB design process.

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How To Work with Power Analyzer by Keysight
Understanding and Correcting Violations

When you finish the Power Analyzer by Keysight simulation process, you may find some design problems. In this video, we will learn how to understand and correct any violations that may arise on your board.

Embedded thumbnail for Routing Any Angle or Arc in RF Design
How-To's
Routing Any Angle or Arc in RF Design

High-frequency signals require special consideration when routing. Altium Designer allows you to add RF nets to a net class, then apply design rules. Learn how, as well as some other handy high-frequency routing tips, in this video.

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How To Work with Power Analyzer by Keysight
Working with Power Analyzer Panel

Learn how to use the Power Analyzer software by Keysight panel. This video explains all the basic instructions and provides helpful hints for using the software effectively.

Embedded thumbnail for Which PCB Materials are used in RF Design
How-To's
Which PCB Materials are used in RF Design

High frequency signals are carried on circuit boards via transmission lines. Learn the differences between standard 50 ohm impedance microstrip lines and coplanar transmission lines in this video. We also explore the best-use cases for coplanar transmission lines, how they impact loss and interference, dielectric thicknesses, and more.

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How To Work with Power Analyzer by Keysight
Configuring Autorecognition

Before using the Power Analyzer by Keysight, it is important to configure certain parameters. In this video, we will demonstrate how to properly set up the software for auto-recognition.

Embedded thumbnail for Adding Power Nets for Simulation
How To Work with Power Analyzer by Keysight
Adding Power Nets for Simulation

One of the most important things when designing your PCB is to check and measure the quality of electrical power for your project. Power Analyzer by Keysight offers you the ability to simulate how power is distributed on your PCB. In this video, we will show you how to prepare power nets for simulation in Altium Designer.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Use Transmission Lines in RF Design
How-To's
How to Use Transmission Lines in RF Design

High frequency signals are carried on circuit boards via transmission lines. Learn the differences between standard 50 ohm impedance microstrip lines and coplanar transmission lines in this video. We also explore the best-use cases for coplanar transmission lines, how they impact loss and interference, dielectric thicknesses, and more.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Reverse Engineer a PCB from Gerber Files
How-To's
How to Reverse Engineer a PCB from Gerber Files

Have you ever done a reverse-engineering? In this video we walk you through the process how to prepare a PCB from Gerber files, using a variety of methods, including via CAMtastic in Altium Designer.

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