News & Updates
On-Demand Webinar
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What is High-Speed Design?
The primary source of high-speed problems is not due to high clock frequency but rather the fast rise and fall times of component signals. With fast edge rates, reflections may occur at the receiver side, and when the board routing is dense, crosstalk may become a problem. During this webinar, you'll sharpen your knowledge and develop new skills that you can use to design High-Speed PCB's more efficiently and effectively.
Blog
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Should You Use Power MOSFETs in Series?
Power MOSFETs enable a huge range of electronic systems, specifically in situations where BJTs are not useful or efficient. MOSFETs can be used in high current systems in parallel arrangements, but what about their use in series? Both arrangements of MOSFETs have their pitfalls that designers should consider. Let’s look at MOSFETs in series as they are quite useful in certain systems, but be careful to design your circuits and your PCB for reliability.
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Controlled ESR Capacitors: Should You Use Them for Power Integrity?
I can’t think of a single product I’ve built that doesn’t require capacitors. We often talk a lot about effective series inductance (ESL) in capacitors and its effects on power integrity. What about effective series resistance (ESR)? Is there a technique you can use to determine the appropriate level of resistance, and can you use ESR to your advantage?
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Microstrip Ground Clearance Part 2: How Clearance Affects Losses
If your goal is to hit a target impedance, and you’re worried about how nearby pour might affect impedance, you can get closer than the limits set by the 3W rule. But what are the effects on losses? If the reason for this question isn’t obvious, or if you’re not up-to-date on the finer points of transmission line design, then keep reading to see how nearby ground pour can affect losses in impedance-controlled interconnects.
On-Demand Webinar
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What is High-Speed Design?
The primary source of high-speed problems is not due to high clock frequency but rather the fast rise and fall times of component signals. With fast edge rates, reflections may occur at the receiver side, and when the board routing is dense, crosstalk may become a problem. During this webinar, you'll sharpen your knowledge and develop new skills that you can use to design High-Speed PCB's more efficiently and effectively.
Blog
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Choosing the Right Microphone for Embedded Applications
If you need to capture sound waves for your electrical device to process, you'll need a microphone. However, microphones these days have become very advanced, and there are so many options to choose from. They range from the relatively simple and popular condenser type microphones to state-of-the-art sound conversion solutions incorporating internal amplifiers and other electronic processing functionality. In this article, we'll take a look at some of the options available.
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Composite Amplifiers and How They Give the Best of Both Worlds
There are many times where you need an amplifier with high gain, low noise, high slew rate, and broad bandwidth simultaneously. However, not all of these design goals are possible with all off-the-shelf components. Here are some points to consider when working with a composite amplifier design and how to evaluate your design with the right set of circuit simulation tools.
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Reduce Common-Mode Noise in Your Power Supply with Impedance Balancing
Simple switching regulator circuits that operate in compact spaces, like on a small PCB, can usually be deployed in noisy environments without superimposing significant noise on the output power level. As long as you lay out the board properly, you’ll probably only need a simple filter circuit to remove EMI on the inputs and outputs. As the regulator becomes larger, both physically and electrically, noise problems can become much more apparent, namely radiated EMI and conducted EMI in the PCB layout.
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Part 1: Why Your PCB Design Review Process Is Obsolete and What You Can Do About It
A PCB design review is a practice to review the design of a board for possible errors and issues at various stages of product development. It can range from a formal checklist with official sign-offs to a more free-form inspection of schematic drawings and PCB layouts. For this article, we will not delve into what to check during a design review process but rather look at how a review process itself usually unfolds and how to optimize it to get the most out of your time.
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Part 2: Why Your PCB Design Review Process Is Obsolete and What You Can Do About It
As we established in Part 1, the PCB design review and collaboration practices have room for improvement in many organizations. To address this, we developed Altium 365. Let's examine how running a PCB project through Altium 365 compares to other methods.
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What is PCB Star Grounding and Why Would Anyone Use It?
If you look on the internet, you'll find some interesting grounding recommendations, and sometimes terminology gets thrown around and applied to a PCB without the proper context or understanding of real electrical behavior. DC recommendations get applied to AC, low current gets applied to high current, and vice versa... the list goes on. One of the more interesting grounding techniques you'll see as a recommendation, including on some popular engineering blogs within the industry, is the use of PCB star grounding.
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Your Guide to PCB Silkscreen
Every PCB has silkscreen on the surface layer, and you’ll see a range of alphanumeric codes, numbers, markings, and logos on PCB silkscreen. What exactly does it all mean, and what specifically should you include in your silkscreen layer? All designs are different, but there are some common pieces of information that will appear in any silkscreen in order to aid assembly, testing, debug, and traceability
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Concept Phase – Lid Assembly Design Part 1
In the exciting next phase of the open-source laptop project we're (finally) diving into design, and getting hands-on with the display panel. Discover how we're selecting the right panel, integrating it seamlessly, and creating a custom DisplayPort adapter to illuminate the screen. Plus, learn how our choices impact features like microphones, webcams, and touch sensors, and how Altium can help bring it all to life. It’s not too late to join as we continue on this innovative journey!
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Unleashing the Power of Concurrent PCB Design
Concurrent PCB Design is essential to unlocking the full potential of engineering teams and delivering innovative products that meet the demands of the modern world. Learn more about the main capabilities and the numerous benefits of this upcoming feature in Altium Designer.
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Crosstalk Reduction and Elimination Techniques in Altium Designer
Whether you're designing a digital board with a ton of traces, or an RF board operating at very high frequencies, any electronic device with propagating signals will experience crosstalk. Learn more about some sure-fire ways you can reduce crosstalk in your high-speed designs.
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Baxandall Volume Control for Audio
The Baxandall volume control is an especially useful, flexible, and simple-to-implement circuit for numerous audio designs. In this article, we will demonstrate how to design this type of equipment.
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Common Flex Design Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Designing flexible circuits involves managing numerous factors. Discover how to prevent mistakes in this process and how to rectify them post-implementation.
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How Much PCB Mask Expansion is Too Much?
In this article you will learn about finding the right balance between PCB mask expansion and potential problems.
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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.
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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.
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Choosing a Converter or Regulator For Your Power Supply Design
When designing the power supply for your device, there are lots of different options. In this article, we will take a brief tour of the main choices in DC power supply design.
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The Benefits of Ultra HDI
Learn more about the combination of using both flexible materials and ultra-HDI feature sizes in this article.
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Understanding Power Supply Current Handling Issues: Causes and Solutions
Troubleshooting power supply current handling issues is crucial to achieving optimal performance of your electronic devices. In this article, we will explore the common reasons why a power supply fails to handle the defined output current and provide practical solutions to solving these issues.
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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.
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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.
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Do You Know How to Prevent Voltage Fluctuation?
We invite you to explore the causes of output voltage fluctuation. In this article we provide you insights on how to solve and prevent these issues.
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How to Build Your Own Laser Range Finder
In this article we will show you how to create step by step a digital laser range finder for your own. Everything is based on Raspberry Pi board.
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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.
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