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PCB Trace and Pad Clearance: Low vs. High Voltage

High voltage/high current designs carry safety requirements which need to be met by designers. Similarly, high speed designs need to have suppressed crosstalk in order to ensure signal integrity. The key design aspects that relate to both areas are your PCB trace clearance and pad clearance values. These design choices are critical for balancing safety, noise suppression, and manufacturability.

Blog
Getting Through PCB DFM

In this article, we’ll discuss the key design features to implement, and steps to take prior to fabrication that will help prevent some DFM process pain.

Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide
Blog
Level Up Your Design Skills - Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide Update
We are happy to announce the new update of our Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide. Whether you are new to Altium Designer or you want to brush up on some topics, the Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide will take you from a beginner to a master in PCB design.  This is only the beginning! This guide will be updated with new information based on user feedback. Let’s first go over the contents of the guide.
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Discovering Altium 365
Design Review Use Case

Design reviews are critical to being successful. Capture design discussions through contextual commenting in the web browser or in Altium Designer to ensure feedback is recorded and actioned effectively.

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Blog
Modeling Copper Foil Roughness in Altium Designer's Impedance Profiler

With the new layer stack manager in Altium Designer®, you can now include copper foil roughness factors directly in your impedance calculator. This is quite easy to do in the layer stack manager, but it begs the question: what exactly is the copper roughness factor? Which value should be used for your interconnects?

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Resolving Errors in the PCB

We’ve looked at how to set up the Design Rule Checker to help us analyze our PCB design errors. Now it’s time to resolve these errors and prep our design to start generating output files.

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Blog
High-Speed Signal Routing: The 5 Important Constraints

After you capture your schematic as an initial layout and create an initial component arrangement, it’s time to define your routing constraints. Doing this early will allow your DRC engine to spot rules violations before you finish your layout. Likewise, you’ll be able to modify the default rule set to meet your layout requirements. Here are the important routing constraints you’ll need to check before you start routing your board.

Blog
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.

Blog
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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Blog
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.

Blog
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.

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Blog
Wire Bonding in Altium Designer

The Wire Bonding in Altium Designer article highlights how Altium Designer 25’s wire bonding feature streamlines complex designs for advanced assemblies like 3D stacked dies and RF modules. This tool enhances efficiency and precision, catering to modern electronic design needs.

Blog
Optimize PCB Design with Integrated BOM and CAD Systems

Discover how integrating BOM management and CAD systems can streamline your PCB design process in this insightful article. Learn how combining these tools enables smoother collaboration, reduces errors, and improves design efficiency, helping you optimize your workflows from concept to manufacturing.

Blog
The Essential Guide to Through-Hole Resistors

Resistors are fundamental components in electronic circuits, essential for controlling current and voltage. This article explores their basic principles, types, and key applications, helping you understand their crucial role in electronics.

Blog
Avoiding Costly Delays: Essential Tips for PCB Designers

Efficient PCB design is crucial for avoiding costly delays in product development. This article offers practical tips and best practices for PCB designers to streamline their workflows, minimize errors, and ensure timely project completion.

Blog
Mastering EMI Control in PCB Design: Component Placement for EMC

In the second article of the "Mastering EMI Control in PCB Design" series Dario Fresu explores how effective component placement can reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI) in printed circuit boards. He highlights strategies such as board segregation and careful management of high-speed signals and their harmonics to ensure signal integrity and minimize emissions.

Blog
Signal Integrity Principles based on Altium Designer 24

Check out this article where Rafał Stępień dives into the essentials of maintaining signal integrity in high-speed digital systems. Discover key techniques like controlling signal reflections, reducing crosstalk, and designing differential pairs in Altium Designer 24 to ensure reliable and efficient PCB performance.

RSP Launch Cover
Blog
Launch of Requirements & Systems Portal in Altium 365

The Requirements & Systems Portal is now live in Altium 365! Engineers can write, manage, and verify requirements within the Altium 365 workspace. You can link your requirements directly to schematics and PCB designs to ensure all engineers are working with the latest data. Request access today!

Blog
Favorite Tools for BOM Review

Check out our article, where Lawrence Romine shares his top tools for conducting efficient Bill of Materials (BOM) reviews in PCB design. It highlights key features in Altium 365, Octopart, and ActiveBOM that help engineers avoid unsourceable components and streamline procurement.

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NEW
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New in Altium's Software
Create Clearance Rules Faster and with Less Effort

Setting up clearance rules is now more intuitive in the Constraint Manager. Choose the Simple view for faster configuration with grouped object types, or the Advanced view when you need detailed, matrix-based clearance control.

NEW
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How-To's
Mastering HDI Design Rules in Altium Designer

In our latest Altium Academy tutorial, we guide you through configuring the essential HDI PCB design rules in Altium's software. You'll learn how to use your manufacturer's fabrication capabilities to create accurate design rules and constraints for your PCB.

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New in Altium's Software
Search, Filter, and Navigate PCB Designs Faster

The Web Viewer now features a redesigned search experience for faster access to PCB design data across supported CAD formats. A lightweight, intuitive interface lets you begin with simple search terms and progressively refine results using contextual suggestions.

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New in Altium's Software
Gain Better Control Over Wire Bond Visibility

New bond wire visibility controls give you greater flexibility when working with wire-bonded boards and footprints, making it easier to focus on the details that matter most.

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New in Altium's Software
Coming Soon: Selectable Harness Source Within Multi-board Design

Selectable Harness Source Within Multi-board Design enables harness projects to drive system connectivity while maintaining bidirectional synchronization between multi-board schematics and harness wiring diagrams for improved accuracy and easier design management.

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New in Altium's Software
Choose the Simbeor Version for Your PCB Calculations

The PCB Editor now lets you choose the Simbeor version used for delay and impedance calculations, giving you more flexibility and consistency across your design workflows.

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New in Altium's Software
Improve PCB Editor Performance with Via Instancing

The PCB Editor now uses via instancing to generate geometry for each via individually, providing greater flexibility and a more advanced approach to managing vias in PCB designs.

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How-To's
GSSG Stackup Deep Dive: Routing, Impedance, and HDI

A ground-signal-signal-ground (GSSG) stackup rethinks the traditional four-layer PCB structure by moving the ground planes to the outer layers and routing signals on the two inner layers. In this Altium Academy deep dive, we review a real one-minute design review submission and demonstrate how to configure a GSSG stackup properly using the Layer Stack Manager.

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New in Altium's Software
Generate IPC-7351B Compliant Footprints with More Control

The IPC Compliant Footprint Wizard has been updated to improve IPC-7351B compliance across supported package types. Enhancements include footprint calculations, package outlines, silkscreen and courtyard generation, layer mapping, density table behavior, and new pad trimming controls for gullwing packages, with support added to the batch generator Excel template.

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New in Altium's Software
Add Unit-Aware Temperature Coefficient Parameters

Component templates in a connected Workspace on the Altium Platform now include support for Temperature Coefficient (ppm/°C) as a unit-aware user parameter type. This makes it possible to define temperature coefficient values directly within the template using the appropriate units.

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How-To's
When to Add Part Numbers to SMD Passives

Check out our new video covering essential electronics fundamentals, with a focus on why including part numbers for SMD passive components, such as SMD resistors, directly on schematics is so important. We also explore whether relying only on the Bill of Materials (BOM) is enough for effective electronic component management.

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New in Altium's Software
Present Large Harness Tables More Clearly

Harness Draftsman now supports splitting connection tables across multiple pages in *.HarDwf documents. With the new page height limit setting, you can easily control how much of the table appears on each page.

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How-To's
Innovate Beyond - The Future of Electronics Development in Automotive

Discover how the future of automotive electronics is being shaped by a more connected development approach that unifies teams, data, requirements, design, collaboration, and manufacturing. Recorded at BMW Welt and the BMW Museum during Altium’s "The Future of Electronics Development in Automotive" event, this video explores the key challenges and innovations driving the next generation of automotive design.

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New in Altium's Software
Coming Soon: Design Rule Sets

Soon, PCB design rules in Altium will be organized into reusable Rule Sets within the PCB Rules and Constraints Editor. These rule sets can be created, duplicated, enabled or disabled, renamed, deleted, imported, and exported, making it easier to manage rules for specific interfaces, manufacturing requirements, or unique design constraints.

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How-To's
Decoupling Capacitor Routing: When to Use Vias vs Traces

Check out this video, a follow-up to the decoupling capacitor placement series, exploring the inductance tradeoffs between trace routing and via connections. Using real component examples from an Ethernet switch design in Altium, the video demonstrates how different routing choices can impact overall performance.

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New in Altium's Software
Coming Soon: Interactive Dynamic Phase Tuning

The Interactive Length Tuning tool allows you to manually tune a single net in a differential pair while maintaining equal pair length and phase alignment across the entire route. This enables more efficient differential signal transmission, greater control during manual tuning, and faster pattern creation within defined phase tolerance limits.

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