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Embedded thumbnail for What to Consider when Designing Edge Connectors
DFM and Fabrication Cost/Time Constraints
What to Consider when Designing Edge Connectors

If your design requires edge connectors there are a few important things to consider. We’ll walk you through how to make sure your design with edge connectors is easy and manufacturable.

Rigid-Flex in Altium Designer
Blog
Support for Rigid-Flex in Altium Designer

Rigid-flex in Altium Designer starts with designing a manufacturable PCB layer stack complete with via transitions and any calculated impedance requirements. Flex sections also need to be placed in the layer stack before moving into the PCB layout. Once inside the PCB editor, bending lines can be clearly defined in the PCB layout, and these can be visualized in Altium Designer's 3D PCB design tools. Keep reading to see how Altium Designer supports your flex and rigid-flex designs.

Embedded thumbnail for Design RF PCB: Distributed-Element Circuits
RF PCB Design
Design RF PCB: Distributed-Element Circuits

Distributed-element circuits are a topology of a particular shape and size. Filters, power dividers, directional couplers can be built from them. Being calculated in third-party CAD, the topology of such elements can be easily imported into Altium Designer, and we will show you how to do it!

Embedded thumbnail for Variants in Schematic Editor
How to work with Variants
Variants in Schematic Editor

You can quickly create and edit variants with the schematic Editor in Altium Designer. We’ll show you how to create and edit the variants in the schematic editor by utilizing the parameter variation tool, the edit component variation tool, part actions, toggling fitted or non fitted, and the variant manager.

Specifying your stackup
Blog
Communicating PCB Layer Stackup Needs to Manufacturers

In the business of PCB design, communicating needs to manufacturers and vendors is a top priority. The context of our requests is sometimes lost either by not providing the correct information, not listing enough information, or not giving any information. Although the experienced PCB designer can take steps to specify everything they want to see in their PCB stackup, eventaully the manufacturer will handle that decision in an effort to balance available materials with processing capabilities and yield.

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.

Risk Vs. Reward
Blog
Risk Vs. Reward

During the recent IPC APEX expo, there was a lot of discussion about SAP, or semi-additive PCB processes.  As with any new technology adoption there were people that are excited to jump right in and start designing with much finer feature sizes and work through the inevitable changes to the traditional thought process. Others are in a "let’s wait and see" mode and of course there are a few skeptics there as well, so keep reading to learn more.

Embedded thumbnail for Designing a Silkscreen
DFM and Fabrication Cost/Time Constraints
Designing a Silkscreen

The silkscreen layer allows you to add text and extra detail that will appear in your final designed board. We'll show you how to get started and what to look for when creating a silkscreen.

Parasitic Extraction for your traces
Blog
Parasitic Extraction with an Electromagnetic Solver in PCB Routing

Parasitic extraction: the integrated circuit design community must grapple with this task on a daily basis, especially once gate features are reduced below ~350 nm and chips run at high switching speeds. The PCB community also has to deal with this idea in order to better design power delivery networks, interconnects with precise impedance, and properly quantify crosstalk and coupling mechanisms.

Embedded thumbnail for Types of Component Variations
How to work with Variants
Types of Component Variations

Altium Designer allows you to implement several different types of component variations. We’ll show you the differences between fitted, modified parameters, not fitted, and alternate Part variations, as well as how to add and manage these variations for your design.

PCB
Blog
Ebook: PDN Simulation and Analysis Guide

Most designers don’t realize they need to worry about power integrity until they have a power integrity problem. Other designers might build boards that can’t handle the demands of modern digital and high frequency components, and they may not realize the problems that lurk in their power delivery network (PDN). Although the basic concepts involved in designing for power integrity are well-known, myths about power integrity abound, and designers need tools to help them evaluate and qualify power integrity in a PDN.

Embedded thumbnail for Query Language: Basic Concept Part III
Query Language
Query Language: Basic Concept Part III

Often the criterion for searching certain objects in Altium Designer is matching parameters to some string (text) values. Learn from this video how to use substitution symbols in queries and increase your productivity when working on projects

Embedded thumbnail for Solder Mask Expansion and Minimum Sliver
DFM and Fabrication Cost/Time Constraints
Solder Mask Expansion and Minimum Sliver

Using the solder mask expansion and the minimum solder mask sliver rules, you can make sure your solder mask layer doesn’t interfere with any of your exposed copper and is manufacturable.

Ferrites in PDN Simulation
Blog
Ferrite Beads and Transfer Impedance in a PDN Simulation

The use of ferrites in a PDN is one design recommendation that is fraught with unclear guidance and over-generalized recommendations. If you see an application note or a reference design that recommends placing a ferrite in a PDN, should you follow this in your specific design, or should you ignore this and focus on adding capacitance? 

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.

PCB Design Outputs
Blog
Overview of PCB Design Output Files

Before your board can be put into production and prepared for assembly, you have to generate a set of files that assist your manufacturer. These are your PCB design output files, also known as manufacturing files, fabrication data, assembly files, and a host of other names. Before you send your design file off to a manufacturer in an email, make sure to get a list of their required fabrication and assembly files first. If you’re a new designer, take some time to read over the basic PCB manufacturing file extensions below.

Embedded thumbnail for Query Language: Basic Concept Part II
Query Language
Query Language: Basic Concept Part II

Do you want to learn how to make more complex queries consisting of several commands? This video is about auxiliary operators that exist in the Altium Designer query language, and how to combine and use them together.

Embedded thumbnail for Teardrops for DFM
DFM and Fabrication Cost/Time Constraints
Teardrops for DFM

If you need to increase the width to any primitive, but need to maintain manufacturability, you can use teardrops. We’ll show you how to create a teardrop and specify the shape and size.

How transformers work
Blog
Transformer Theory Made Simple

Transformers can provide very effective signal isolation and are used to manipulate AC voltage and current levels. They can achieve all this with a greater than 95% power efficiency, which is why we commonly see them used in bench power supplies, audio gear, computers, kitchen appliances, and wall-warts. However, transformer theory can be unintuitive and in this article we answer on questions about them

Tag
Blog
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.

Blog
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.

Benefits of Ultra HDI
Blog
The Benefits of Ultra HDI

Learn more about the combination of using both flexible materials and ultra-HDI feature sizes in this article.

Blog
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.

Harness Design
Blog
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.

Blog
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.

Blog
Analog Solar Tracker Project

In this article you can learn about light sensors while building an analog solar panel tracking system. This open-source project covers multi-channel design, window comparators, driving motors, and photosensors.

Blog
Concept Phase – Initial CAD Design

We are continuing our journey through the open-source laptop project. This article explains an initialization of CAD design process from the early concept and brainstorming phase.

Blog
High-Speed PCB Design Tips

Essential tips for high-speed PCB designs, and when you need to start being concerned about how and where you route your traces.

Tag
Embedded thumbnail for Pin Package Delay | High-speed Design
How To Work with High-Speed Projects
Pin Package Delay | High-speed Design

There are a few things to consider when adding and tuning signal delay to your design. Altium Designer gives you the tools to address the fine tuning for signal delay so you can easily make it work, using pin package delay. 

Embedded thumbnail for Introduction to Snapping Options
How to use Snapping
Introduction to Snapping Options

Introduction to snapping options: grids, guides, axes of objects, and snapping to objects.

Embedded thumbnail for Working with Tables | Draftsman Document
How to Work with Draftsman
Working with Tables | Draftsman Document

The Draftsman Document Editor allows you to add all your data for your design through tables. We’ll show you how to work with tables, and the various options to add and edit, such as Bill of Materials, Drill Tables, Transmission Line Tables, and custom tables. 

Embedded thumbnail for Pin Part Swapping | High-speed Design
How To Work with High-Speed Projects
Pin Part Swapping | High-speed Design

If you have a lot of traces intersecting on a single layer, but you need to minimize the amount of vias for your high speed design, you can utilize pin and part swapping. Altium Designer has tools to solve these issues, and we’ll show you how to solve them.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Route High-Speed Designs | High-Speed Design
How To Work with High-Speed Projects
How to Route High-Speed Designs | High-Speed Design

Routing for your high-speed design can be really easy with just a little preparation. We’ll walk you through the best ways to set up your routing so you can easily route your high-speed signals. 

Embedded thumbnail for How to Define A Net Class on Schematic | How To Use Altium Designer
How-To's
How to Define A Net Class on Schematic | How To Use Altium Designer

Altium Designer makes it easy to define net classes in both PCB and the schematic. We’ll show you how to define a net class in the schematic for whatever classes you need. 

Embedded thumbnail for Creating Differential Pairs in the Schematic
How to Work with Differential Pairs
Creating Differential Pairs in the Schematic

Learn how to create differential pairs on the schematic side.

Embedded thumbnail for Measuring in the PCB
How-To's
Measuring in the PCB

Altium Designer gives you fine grained control over how you measure object distances in the PCB. When spacing is such a critical aspect of board layout, this control is absolutely necessary. We'll show you how to utilize the measure distance command and measure selected objects, as well as how to measure tracks and faces of 3D bodies.

Embedded thumbnail for Quantel Laser | MCAD and ECAD Designers Collaborate with Altium
Discovering Altium 365
Quantel Laser | MCAD and ECAD Designers Collaborate with Altium

In this video, Quantel’s engineers - Jeremie Waller (Senior Electrical Engineer) is using Altium Designer for ECAD and Laine McNeil (Senior Mechanical Engineer) is using Solidworks for MCAD. They are both in an Altium 365 workspace that allows them to closely collaborate while staying in their own familiar design environment.

Embedded thumbnail for Using Free (Any) Angle Routing
How-To's
Using Free (Any) Angle Routing

In this video, you will see how Altium Designer now makes it extremely easy to create curved corners in your designs. Previously, arc-in-corner routing was only supported during interactive routing, but not in Push&Shove mode or during track sliding. The new Push&Shove engine solves this by adding arcs during push and shove and also during track sliding, which is done by switching to any angle corner mode to perform snake routing.

Embedded thumbnail for Snapping When Creating Routes
How to use Snapping
Snapping When Creating Routes

Learn how to effectively use snapping to facilitate routing.

Embedded thumbnail for How to edit or manage your board shape in Altium Designer | Rigid-flex
How to Work with Rigid-Flex PCBs
How to edit or manage your board shape in Altium Designer | Rigid-flex

Altium Designer 21 features many powerful tools for creating and editing your rigid-flex board shape. We’ll show you how to use to the board planning mode to create board shape and define regions as well as edit their properties for easy identification and functionality.

Embedded thumbnail for How Breville Innovates 4x Faster with Altium
Discovering Altium 365
How Breville Innovates 4x Faster with Altium

Learn how Breville, a consumer electronics company from Australia, was able to speed up its product development process by at least four times with Altium 365. 

Embedded thumbnail for How to use the Property Panel in Altium Designer
How-To's
How to use the Property Panel in Altium Designer

How to use the Property Panel in Altium Designer: The properties panel is your information hub for all objects in Altium Designer. Watch this video to learn how to best use the properties dialog in Altium Designer. 

Embedded thumbnail for How to Improve Routing Using Glossing
How-To's
How to Improve Routing Using Glossing

Routes for your design can get messy, leading to inefficiency and waste. Altium Designer’s Glossing features can help! We’ll show you how to clean up your interactive routing as you route, how to gloss tracks already routed, and some tips and tricks to clean them up exactly how you want them.

Embedded thumbnail for Tenting Vias in Altium Designer
How-To's
Tenting Vias in Altium Designer

This video shows how to tent vias in Altium Designer by using design rules. Since vias are often located very close to pads, during assembly, solder paste sometimes flows into vias, which, in turn, leads to poor soldering quality. To avoid this, cover vias with a solder mask layer.

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