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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. 

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How-To's
How to Control Routing in Altium Designer

The routing functionality in Altium Designer is constantly evolving. Check out this video to learn the basics of routing in Altium Designer. 

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Working with Polygons
Polygon Creation

Learn how to create polygon pours to ensure proper copper distribution on your board.

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

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How to use Snapping
Creating Guide Lines and Snap Points

Explanation of guides and snap points and how to create and use them.

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.

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Working with Polygons
Polygon Types and Parameters

Each board requires different copper geometries. Polygon types make sure you can create the perfect copper geometry for every need.

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How-To's
How to Define Different Clearance for Internal and External Layers

If you need to define difference clearance values for your external and internal layers, the answer is with design rules. We’ll walk you through it in this short video. 

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.

Advantages of Using a Version Control System for Your Next Project
On-Demand Webinar
Advantages of Using a Version Control System for Your Next Project

Version control systems (VCS) have been around for a long time in the software world but can be surprisingly new to some folks in the electronics design industry. Version control tools are great for tracking and maintaining entire codebases without the old-school copying, pasting, zipping, and emailing steps many PCB designers use.

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.

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How to use Snapping
Setting Snap Distance and Axis Snap Range

Learn more about what snap distance and axis snap range are and how to use them.

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Working with Polygons
Polygon Editing

Editing existing polygons is crucial for optimizing your design. You can easily select polygons to edit, resize, combine, and more.

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.

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How-To's
How to Open All Schematic Documents

This video shows how to open all your project's schematic documents at once.

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.

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Impedance calculation
Calculating Impedance in Altium Designer

This video covers how to calculate impedance in Altium Designer. This is especially important when dealing with high-speed designs. You want to make sure impedance is matched to avoid any reflections and maintain good signal integrity.

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How to Work with 3D Mode
Using 3D Component Body Features for Precise Component Creation

Learn to quickly and accurately place 3D models of components on their footprints

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.

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Blog
Best Tools For PCB DFM Checks

Want to catch manufacturability issues before they turn into expensive delays? Discover the essential DFM tools from real-time checks to post-layout analysis that help you get your PCB right the first time.

Blog
Eliminate Your Design Friction with Agile Teams

Design friction from scattered data and disconnected tools slows down PCB development and leads to rework. This webinar shows how Agile Teams streamlines collaboration, aligns domains, and helps teams deliver faster with fewer errors.

Blog
What is the Best Cloud PCB Design Software?

Not all cloud PCB tools are created equal, especially when design complexity increases. This article breaks down key differences between cloud-native and hybrid solutions, helping engineers choose the right approach for performance and scalability.

Blog
From Rework to Revenue: Digital PCB DFMA

This article explores how traditional, manual DFMA workflows lead to costly rework, delays, and poor collaboration across engineering teams. It shows how a connected, digital approach enables better data integrity, faster design cycles, and improved manufacturing outcomes.

Blog
How to Choose the Right Components for Your BOM

A strong BOM can make the difference between smooth production and costly delays. Discover a practical approach to choosing components that stay available, meet compliance requirements, and keep your project on schedule.

Blog
From Scattered Requirements to Confident Product Development

See how the Requirements Portal transforms disconnected requirements into a single, live source of truth that engineers can trust at every stage of a project! Real customer stories in the article prove it’s already helping teams cut down on rework and bring products to market faster.

Blog
What is the Best PCB Design Tool For Students?

Students need PCB software that’s intuitive, affordable, and useful for building real skills. This article compares the strengths and weaknesses of leading design tools, from hobbyist platforms to industry-standard software.

Blog
What Is Collaborative Engineering?

Collaborative engineering is all about breaking down silos so electrical, mechanical, and sourcing teams can work as one with shared data and real-time updates. This article shows how that approach helps you spot issues early, reduce rework, and get products out the door with fewer surprises.

Blog
Bend Reliability: How Trace Geometry and Materials Impact Flex Lifespan

Focused on durability under repeated mechanical stress, this piece details how routing strategy, copper thickness, adhesive systems, and bend radius selection determine flex lifespan. Engineers will find actionable recommendations for reducing strain concentration and improving long-term performance in high-cycle applications.

Blog
PCB Design Process: The EDA Design Approach

Dive into how a modern EDA workflow transforms PCB design by linking electrical, mechanical, and manufacturing requirements from idea to final release. With constraint‑driven integration, you can cut down on respins and bring better boards to market faster.

Blog
Getting Started for Mechanical Engineers

Explore our collection of MCAD Collaboration walkthroughs, where you’ll discover how to synchronize mechanical constraints and keepouts, maintain traceability with advanced history and revision control, and streamline electromechanical connectivity through harness synchronization. These topics and many more are covered in this article.

Blog
Are Your ECAD Tools Holding Back Engineers’ Productivity?

The article highlights that productivity issues often stem from tool limitations rather than engineer effort, especially as project complexity grows. ECAD tools that offer clear version control, cross-discipline integration, and workflow awareness are key to sustaining efficiency.

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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

Embedded thumbnail for How to Work with The Polygon Manager
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.

Embedded thumbnail for Assigning Impedance Profiles for Differential Pairs
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.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Highlight or Select Net Connections in the PCB
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.

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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.

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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.

Embedded thumbnail for Via-in-Pad for BGA
How to Design a BGA
Via-in-Pad for BGA

We’ll teach you how to use Via-in-pad to reduce inductance, improve signal integrity, and improve power distribution system performance in BGA designs.

Embedded thumbnail for Using HDI Stackups during BGA Design
How to Design a BGA
Using HDI Stackups during BGA Design

Micro Vias and Buried Vias play an important role in high density interconnection layer stackups (HDI Stackups). We’ll show you how to add via and create rules to allow you to take full advantage of the HDI Stackup.

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How to Design a BGA
Automatic Fanout With BGA

When routing a BGA it can be necessary to use automatic fanout to make the routing process easier and faster. We’ll show you how to run the automatic fanout for routing a BGA and how the rules can affect the outcome of the route.

Embedded thumbnail for Specifying NSMD and SMD for BGA
How to Design a BGA
Specifying NSMD and SMD for BGA

BGA layouts use two types of pads: SMD, Solder Mask Pads, or NSMD, Non-Solder Mask Pads. Here we’ll walk you through the differences and how to specify and edit them for your layout.

Embedded thumbnail for Via Shielding and Stitching
Via Stitching
Via Shielding and Stitching

Altium Designer gives you full control over your via shielding and stitching. We’ll show you how to use our shielding and stitching tools, how to alter their parameters, and how to remove any unwanted via shielding and stitching.

Embedded thumbnail for xSignals for DDR3 and DDR4
How To Work with High-Speed Projects
xSignals for DDR3 and DDR4

In a high-speed design, DDR3 and DDR4 memory chips can utilize xSignal classes to match track lengths from the controller to the memory chip easily and quickly using the xSignals wizard.

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How To Work with High-Speed Projects
High-Speed Tuning

If you use high-speed interfaces like USB 3.0, PCIE, or DDR3/DDR4, you need to use match length tuning to ensure that they work properly. We’ll show you why and how, as well as demonstrating the different tools for length tuning.

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How to Work with Draftsman
Using Document Parameters with Draftsman

The Draftsman Editor in Altium Designer uses document parameters to allow fine grain control over the draftsman document. We’ll show you how you can use the document parameters in your Draftsman document. 

Embedded thumbnail for High-Speed Features of Creating a Stack
How To Work with High-Speed Projects
High-Speed Features of Creating a Stack

The foundation of any high speed design is the layer stack. We’ll show you some of Altium Designer’s powerful layer stack creation features.

Embedded thumbnail for High-Speed Return Paths
How To Work with High-Speed Projects
High-Speed Return Paths

For high speed designs it is critical to maintain your return path for adequate signal integrity. We’ll show you how, using best practices and error resolutions in Altium Designer.

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