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PCB Design Variants: Managing Multiple PCBA Versions

Product variations often require different component populations, alternate parts, or configuration settings while keeping the underlying PCB design unchanged. This article explains how structured variant management keeps these differences organized and ensures each configuration has the correct BOM and manufacturing outputs.

NEW
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New in Altium's Software
Improve Visual Accuracy with True Arcs

Discover how True Arc Rendering improves arc visualization in the PCB Editor and PCB Library Editor by displaying true arcs across 2D, 3D, and Board Planning modes. This provides a more accurate representation of board geometry and helps you work with curved features with greater precision throughout the design process.

NEW
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Collaborative Engineering with Team Ribbot
Two engineers, one board, nobody's work gets wiped out

When Team Ribbot’s electrical and mechanical engineers work on the same combat-robot design, unwanted changes can mean hours of lost work. See how Altium Designer and MCAD CoDesign let the team review and selectively accept changes, enabling seamless parallel collaboration across different locations and schedules.

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New in Altium's Software
Visualize and Refine Your Harness Designs

Create detailed views of bundle contents, control wire and cable paths, and rotate physical models to accurately represent the final harness assembly. These capabilities give you greater control over harness design and help ensure your digital model reflects the physical result.

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New in Altium's Software
Introducing Agentic Requirements Engineering

Discover a new way to work with Requirements Portal through Agentic Requirements Engineering. AI agents analyze your project data and surface proposals for your approval, reducing friction in requirements management and helping align your team's shared model with your design intent.

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New in Altium's Software
Simplify Rule Set Updates and Replacement

Learn how to import rule sets with greater flexibility in Altium. When importing rules, you can add new rules to your existing set, replace only rules that match, or completely replace the current rule set giving you full control over how design rules are updated.

Embedded thumbnail for  How Team Ribbot fits 40 kW of power into a 250-pound combat robot
Collaborative Engineering with Team Ribbot
How Team Ribbot fits 40 kW of power into a 250-pound combat robot

What do you get when you pack the power of a small electric car into a combat robot with virtually no room to spare? In the first episode of our collaboration with Team Ribbot and Altium, explore how seamless ECAD-MCAD collaboration helps the team tackle complex design challenges, optimize high-performance designs, reduce errors, and bring products to life faster.

Embedded thumbnail for Just Released: Supplier Data Merging
New in Altium's Software
Just Released: Supplier Data Merging

Discover how the Supplier Data Merging feature brings together supplier information from your custom parts database and the Altium Parts Provider into a single, unified view. Access consolidated supplier data wherever supplier part numbers appear, including in ActiveBOM and during component selection.

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How-To's
How Altium’s Layer Stack Manager Actually Works

Take a look inside Altium's Layer Stack Manager and discover how its impedance calculator determines the ideal trace width for your target impedance. In this video, we break down the "black box" behind the calculation and show how the Simbeor-based field solver provides accurate results while eliminating the need for advanced field solver expertise.

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New in Altium's Software
Connect Requirements Directly to Your PCB Design

See how the Requirements Portal integration in Altium Designer simplifies requirements management by bringing system requirements directly into your PCB design workflow. Connect requirements to design documents, assign tasks, track verification in real time, and keep your entire team aligned with seamless synchronization in Altium 365.

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How-To's
SFP Connector Routing: High-Speed Differential Pair Design Tips

Discover practical SFP and SFP+ routing tips in our latest video, inspired by a real question from the Altium subreddit. We cover how aggressive serpentine length tuning can be, how to reduce impedance discontinuities in tight meanders, and how meandering influences mode conversion at 10G and higher data rates.

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Blog
PCB Design Data Management Tips for Multi-Board Projects

In complex electronic systems, managing data from multiple printed circuit boards can quickly become a logistical challenge. This article outlines a structured workflow for handling both board-level and assembly-level design outputs, ensuring clarity and consistency across fabrication, assembly and product-level documentation.

Blog
What Is BOM Management? A Practical Guide to Avoiding Costly Part Mismatches

From design to production, effective Bill of Materials (BOM) management is critical to ensuring smooth collaboration between engineering, procurement, and manufacturing teams. In this practical guide, we break down proven strategies for structuring, maintaining, and synchronizing your BOM to prevent costly mistakes and accelerate time-to-market.

Blog
Requirements Portal Introductory Tutorials

This series of guided demos shows how the Altium Requirements Portal transforms scattered requirement spreadsheets and emails into traceable, version-controlled data that stays aligned with your PCB design efforts.

Blog
Bridging the Gap: When to Use Rigid-Flex Instead of Flex & Connector

Discover when a rigid-flex PCB is a better choice than a separate flex circuit and connector, especially for designs requiring compact packaging, repeated motion or high reliability. The article emphasizes that although rigid-flex needs more upfront planning and fabrication collaboration, it often pays off in simpler assemblies and improved performance.

Blog
Bridging Mechanical and Electrical Teams for Smarter Automotive Design

As vehicles evolve into advanced electronic systems, the separation between electrical and mechanical design teams becomes a critical bottleneck. This article explores how synchronized ECAD–MCAD workflows help automotive projects move faster, reduce rework and maintain design integrity.

Blog
How Structural Electronics Enables 3D, Flexible, and Wearable Integration

Structural electronics integrates electronic functionality directly into the physical structure of a product, eliminating the need for traditional circuit boards. This article examines how advances in materials, additive manufacturing, and flexible substrates are enabling compact, 3D, and wearable systems with enhanced performance and design freedom.

Blog
Most Common Causes of PCB Assembly Rework and Scrap

Many PCB assemblies fail not because of exotic faults, but due to basic issues like incorrect BOM entries or footprint mismatches that force rework or scrap. This article dives into the most common causes and how to prevent costly defects in your design-to-manufacturing process.

Blog
Behind the Scenes with AI Embedded Development

Forget one-shot AI hacks Ari Mahpour shows the thoughtful, sustainable way to integrate AI into embedded firmware development. Learn the core principles (planning gate, HAL abstraction, observability, timeout design) that can help you push your efficiency 5-10 times in real hardware projects.

Blog
We're heading to PCB West 2025!

Join Altium at PCB West 2025 in Santa Clara, CA, on October 1! Stop by Booth 300 for the official launch of the new Altium platform, built on the foundation of Altium Designer and Altium 365. Be sure to check out our live demos of Altium Develop and Altium Agile.

Blog
Peak Electrical Performance in Multi-Board Designs With Advanced Simulation and Compliance Tools

Moving from single-board to multi-board systems is a leap in complexity. You must manage not just routing, but power, signal integrity, mechanical fit, and regulatory requirements across boards. In this article, you’ll discover how Altium’s advanced simulation and compliance tools help engineering teams overcome these challenges and deliver reliable multi-board solutions.

Blog
Executive Insights Into Electronic Product Development Gaps You Need To Close

Electronics hardware development is falling behind broader product development disciplines due to fragmented workflows, poor collaboration, and limited compliance visibility. This gap introduces risk, delays, and missed opportunities but executives see real business value in modernizing electronics development through better integration, traceability, and lifecycle visibility.

Tag
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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Tuning
What's New in 22.7
Ability to Change Tuning Object Layer Properties

Design of high-speed PCBs becomes easier with this latest release. Now, when you need to quickly move tuning elements to a different layer, you can do so from the Properties panel with a single click.

Tuning
What's New in 22.7
更改调节对象层属性功能

本次发布后,即可更加轻松地进行高速PCB设计。现在,当您需要将调节元件快速移动到其他层时,仅需单击一次即可从Properties面板中执行此操作。

Simulation models
What's New in 22.7
Auto-assign Simulation Models for Components without Models

This latest version of Altium Designer makes schematic simulation even easier. System intelligence automatically recognizes SPICE models and assigns them to components from available sources.

Simulation models
What's New in 22.7
自动分配不含模型的元件仿真模型

最新版Altium Designer将确保您能够更加轻松地进行原理图仿真。系统智能自动识别 SPICE 模型并将其分配给可用来源的元件。

Paste
What's New in 22.7
Control of Paste Mask Output for Variants

Output data needs to be as accurate as possible. For multi-variant designs you can now ensure that the paste mask is only displayed where it is really needed.

Paste
What's New in 22.7
变量助焊层输出控件

输出数据需要尽量准确。对于多变量设计,您现在可以确保将助焊层仅显示在真正需要的位置。

Embedded thumbnail for Adding Designators for Assembly Drawings
How-To's
Adding Designators for Assembly Drawings

Designators for assembly drawings are added on the assembly layer. This video shows how to add the designators.

Embedded thumbnail for Stackup Material Library
How to work with Layer Stack Manager
Stackup Material Library

In this video we will learn more about the Altium designers Layer Stack Mangers built-in materials library, and how to add new material and use it in our board stack. We will also look at how we can save the user materials to an xml format.

Embedded thumbnail for Placing Footprint Pads
How to create a PCB Footprint
Placing Footprint Pads

Every footprints needs proper pad placement to ensure trace connectivity. Placing pads is the first step towards footprint creation.

Tag
Integrating Requirements June 2025 Webinar
On-Demand Webinar Mai 28, 2025
Integrating Requirements into Your PCB Design Workflow
Join our webinar where you will learn about integrated requirements tools who can help you eliminate late-stage design changes, AI support through system requirements and integration of design requirements directly in PCB Design. Don't miss it, register now!
Streamlining Team Collaboration
On-Demand Webinar Apr. 17, 2025
Streamlining Team Collaboration in Industrial PCB Projects
Join us for our upcoming webinar to discover how Altium Designer and Altium 365 can transform your team’s collaboration and take your PCB design projects to the next level. Attend for a chance to win free access to the Altium 365 Training Bundle.
PCB CoDesign Webinar
On-Demand Webinar Jan. 24, 2024
Discover How Altium Designer 24 Revolutionizes Team Dynamics in PCB Design
Expand your collaboration skills and stay ahead of the curve with PCB CoDesign. Design teams often grapple with prolonged design cycles and coordination issues, leading to delays and inefficiencies. In the current landscape, design processes are hindered by fragmented collaboration, resulting in increased layout times and difficulties in synchronizing design updates.