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How to Create a PCB Manufacturing Cost Estimation

Some manufacturers have very convenient PCB manufacturing cost estimation calculators you can use, but the real costs depend on a number of factors. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re producing your own boards, or you are managing manufacturing, testing, and delivery for a new project, it’s your job to help clients understand the primary cost drivers for new boards. Here’s how you can get an estimate of your fabrication costs, both for local and overseas manufacturers.

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Defining the Layer Stackup

The PCB is designed and formed as a stack of layers and the definition of the PCB layer stack is a critical element of successful printed circuit board design. In Altium Designer, the Layer Stack Manager is used to develop the printed circuit board internal design including layer-pairing, careful via design, any back drilling requirements, rigid/flex requirements, copper balancing, layer stack symmetry, and material compliance. This video guides you through creation of a layer stackup, adding the necessary layers, as well as adding an impedance profile.

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PCB Mountable Connectors: SMD vs. Through-hole

Selecting a connector is as much an art as it is a science. The artistic side is all about aesthetics and satisfying clearances, while the scientific side is all about signal integrity. For PCB mountable connectors, you’ll need to choose between surface-mounted or through-hole connectors, and you’ll need to consider how each type affects signal integrity in your application. Here’s what you need to think about beyond the standard connector specifications.

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PCB Via Current-Carrying Capacity: How Hot is Too Hot?

Trace and via current-carrying capacity are legitimate design points to focus on when designing a new board that will carry high current. The goal is to keep conductor temperatures below some appropriate limit, which then helps keep components on the board cool.

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How to Maximize Copper in Your PCB Design: The Pros and Cons of Copper Pouring Versus Placing

There is a saying in copper pour PCB design, “Copper is free.” It means a PCB editor designer must think in reverse. A board starts off as solid copper, and the copper you don’t want is removed. It is faster to build, less consumptive, and less expensive to make a board that is mostly copper as compared to the same size board that is mostly bare. Picking the correct technique will make the difference between an effortless or frustrating experience.

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Searching for Errors in Schematic

Searching for Errors: Errors and mistakes happen to everyone - from beginners to professionals. So we always preach how it is paramount for your design to be validated before pushing it to the PCB. But luckily it’s pretty easy to find and analyze any errors using Altium Designer. We’ll take a look at how to find and analyze errors in your schematic.

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Juni 2, 2020
Creating Net Classes

A Net Class is a collection of nets that can be used for creating a targeted design rule. So for example, you may want all power and ground nets to have a minimum track width to handle a specific current rating. So we’ll show you how to assign these nets to a NetClass. 

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Blog Mai 14, 2020
How to Highlight Nets in Altium Designer to Simplify Schematic and PCB Designs

Highlighting nets will help you simplify your schematic and PCB design. In Altium , there are multiple options that enable you to leverage this capability to simplify the verification of connections and circuit paths and make sure that the design you send to your manufacturer accurately reflects the printed circuit board you need built.

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New in Altium Designer 20 Mai 6, 2020
How to Transfer Libraries to Concord Pro

This video demonstrates how the Library Migrator can quickly move database and integrated libraries to the Concord Pro workspace. Your design can be organized and verified in the Library Migrator before pushing it to the cloud. After migration, the Messages panel will display any missing information.

Routed tracks
Blog Mai 5, 2020
Helpful Tips for Interactive Routing in Altium Designer

Before you jump into the software, you should know the types of things you’re going to want to look out for. Traces, connection lines, differential pair routing, and route paths can all affect the routing process of your board. Make sure that you’re equipped knowing, ultimately, what you want your board design to accomplish and furthermore, where you anticipate potential problem areas to be.

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New in Altium Designer 20 Apr. 29, 2020
Improved Impedance Calculator

The impedance calculator in the Layer Stack Manager now supports single and differential coplanar structures. This video shows how the impedance calculator has been improved with new coplanar transmission line structures, greater control over the dimensional properties of the physical structure, and modeling of Conductor Surface Roughness using Surface Roughness and Roughness Factor values. 

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New in Altium Designer 20 Apr. 27, 2020
Propagation Delay Support

In Altium Designer 20.0, you can now selectively monitor propagation delay along the whole connection or selected objects, such as tracks, pads, and vias.

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New in Altium Designer 20 Apr. 23, 2020
New Routing Capabilities

Advanced routing capabilities help you complete the most basic, as well as the most difficult, routing challenges. In Altium Designer 20.0, we’ve added intelligent control over pad entries that are capable of working with any combination of pad geometry as well as a new any angle routing mode that allows you to make beautiful traces that smoothly contours around obstacles.

Blog Apr. 22, 2020
Any Angle Routing: When Should You Use It?

EDA tools have come a long way since the advent of personal computing. Now advanced routing features like auto-routers, interactive routing, length tuning, and pin-swapping are helping designers stay productive, especially as device and trace densities increase. Read full article in our blog:

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Blog
One Vision, Three Powerful Solutions: Introducing Altium Discover, Altium Develop, and Altium Agile

We are excited to announce the launch of three new platform-based solutions that will transform the way electronic products are designed, built, and delivered: Altium Discover, Altium Develop, and Altium Agile. These solutions are designed to simplify processes, accelerate innovation, and make collaboration seamless across the entire electronics lifecycle. Together, they realize the purpose of Altium and Renesas: To Make Our Lives Easier.

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The Top 5 Workflow Bottlenecks Slowing Down Mechanical Engineering Teams

Mechanical engineering teams frequently encounter delays from fragmented communication, disconnected toolchains, and inefficient synchronization processes. This article examines five critical workflow bottlenecks and highlights how ECAD-MCAD integration with real-time, bidirectional updates can eliminate rework and accelerate design iterations.

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Building a Model Context Protocol Server for Arduinos

This guide walks you through creating an MCP server that turns AI interactions with Arduino into a predictable, automated process handling tasks like board listing, compilation, and serial communication via a fast, menu‑driven interface. Skip the guesswork of prompt nudging and reduce the risk of unintended device issues.

Blog
Getting Started with the GreenPAK Introduction Kit

Take your first steps into mixed-signal design with the Renesas GreenPAK Introduction Kit. Ari Mahpour shows how to design, simulate, and validate a clock divider project, making it easy for beginners to start experimenting with programmable mixed-signal devices.

Blog
Smarter Electronic Part Sourcing for Automotive Purchasing Professionals

Targeted at procurement professionals in the automotive industry, the article outlines the evolving pressures of sourcing components for electrified and connected vehicles. It highlights Octopart’s ecosystem as a unified tool that centralizes availability, compliance, pricing, and lifecycle intelligence to optimize sourcing efficiency.

Blog
Stack-Up to Success: Avoid the Pitfalls

"Stack‑Up to Success" highlights how a carefully planned PCB stack‑up is foundational to preventing warpage, managing impedance, and avoiding manufacturing delays by clearly communicating layer construction, materials, and tolerance requirements to fabricators.

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How to Effectively Use Jira for Hardware Development Projects

Originally built for software development, Jira has become a popular tool for agile project management across various industries. Our new article explores how hardware teams can leverage core Jira features and adapt agile principles to suit the unique needs of hardware development.

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Embedded thumbnail for Automatic Fanout With BGA
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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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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How to Work with Draftsman
Working with Design Variants

Altium Designer’s Draftsman Document allows for several different board views and variants that you can work with. We’ll show you how to add new variants and work with their properties to display exactly what you need in your Draftsman Document

Embedded thumbnail for Creating Schematics in High-speed Projects
How To Work with High-Speed Projects
Creating Schematics in High-speed Projects

There are several powerful features in Altium Designer for creating schematics in high speed projects. We’ll show you a few, such as how to utilize nets, net classes, blankets, design rules, and differential pairs.

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How to Work with Multichannel Schematic
Creating Connectivity

Multichannel connectivity can be created in a few different ways. We’ll show you how to create connectivity using ports and net labels efficiently and effectively. 

Embedded thumbnail for Hierarchical Structure for High-Speed Projects
How To Work with High-Speed Projects
Hierarchical Structure for High-Speed Projects

A Hierarchical structure can make your high speed project much easier to navigate and complete. We’ll show you some tips and tricks for creating and maintaining a high speed. Hierarchical design project.

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How to work with Snippets
Schematic Design Reuse Using Snippets

Snippets allow you to easily reuse circuitry across multiple parts of your designs. We’ll show you how create a new snippets the Schematic and how to connect and annotate it so you can easily bring your circuitry directly into your board.

Embedded thumbnail for PCB Design Reuse Using Snippets
How to work with Snippets
PCB Design Reuse Using Snippets

Snippets give you easy access to reuse circuitry on your PCB. Let’s take a look at how you can create and configure snippets for the PCB, connect a component link with the schematic and update the PCB to include your snippet.

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How to Work with Multichannel Schematic
Creating Schematic Channels

Altium Designer makes creating single and multichannel designs effective and quick. We’ll show you how to create and annotate output and input channels in your design. 

Embedded thumbnail for Using Snapping for Primitives and Components | Draftsman Documents
How to Work with Draftsman
Using Snapping for Primitives and Components | Draftsman Documents

Snapping using the grids and snapping tools in Altium Designer’s Draftsman Editor gives you a lot of control over how you create and annotate primitives and components. We’ll show you how easy it is to use snapping in the Draftsman Editor. 

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