Welcome, Guest

Sign in to learn, create, and do more with the product you love.

News & Updates

Filters:
Tag
NEW
Embedded thumbnail for How to Draw Antipads - Complete Tutorial
How-To's
How to Draw Antipads - Complete Tutorial

Discover how to draw and define antipads in Altium with this complete tutorial. Learn three different methods for creating antipads around vias. From simple design rules to advanced polygon cutouts for both basic and complex PCB designs.

NEW
Embedded thumbnail for Do PCB Manufacturers Actually Look at Fabrication Drawings?
How-To's
Do PCB Manufacturers Actually Look at Fabrication Drawings?

Explore this in-depth tutorial featuring real fabrication drawings, stackup specifications, and drill tables - all created using Altium Designer’s Draftsman tool. Learn essential insights into PCB data management and manufacturing requirements from an industry perspective.

Embedded thumbnail for Compensating Transmission Line Losses in a PCB Calculator
How-To's
Compensating Transmission Line Losses in a PCB Calculator

This tutorial uncovers the key difference between ideal, lossless impedance calculations and real-world signal behavior giving you practical techniques to design controlled impedance PCBs that deliver reliable performance.

Blog
How to Make Your PCB Layout AOI and X-Ray Friendly

Designing for inspection is key to reliable manufacturing. This article covers practical PCB layout tips to optimize your board for AOI and X-ray inspection helping you reduce defects, false positives, and production delays.

Embedded thumbnail for How Close Can You Bring a Reference Plane?
How-To's
How Close Can You Bring a Reference Plane?

Explore our in-depth investigation into practical simulations using both Altium Designer and Polar Si9000. We demonstrate impedance sensitivity analysis and reveal the real limitations of optimizing reference plane proximity for improved signal shielding.

Blog
Understanding Systems Engineering

Read our brand-new article where we explore the key areas of an engineering project and the different stages of electronic product development from a project execution perspective. From initiation and planning to design, development, validation, testing, and certification, we walk you through each phase to help you understand how successful electronic products are brought to life.

Embedded thumbnail for Do PCB Thermal Vias Actually Work?
How-To's
Do PCB Thermal Vias Actually Work?

Are thermal vias really helping your PCB’s heat management? Tech Consultant Zach Peterson dives into simulation data, research, and a controversial article to uncover the truth. Learn why via count and spacing matter more than sheer quantity.

Embedded thumbnail for Stripline Routing Deep Dive: How Close Is Too Close?
How-To's
Stripline Routing Deep Dive: How Close Is Too Close?

In this video, Zach Peterson takes a deep dive into what happens when reference layers are incorrectly set in a PCB stackup and how that affects impedance, signal integrity, and EMC. He also shares valuable insights into stripline routing proximity issues and best practices for assigning reference planes.

Blog
Power Integrity Issues?

Power problems can be hard to spot until it’s too late. See how easy it is to analyze your power nets, check voltage drops, and improve reliability with Power Analyzer by Keysight - all without leaving your design environment.

Embedded thumbnail for Coming Soon: Solder Mask Zero Expansion
New in Altium Designer 25
Coming Soon: Solder Mask Zero Expansion

Solder Mask Zero Expansion marks a move toward industry alignment, specifically with IPC-7351B and IPC-2581B standards. It changes the default solder mask expansion value from 4 mil to 0 mil. Discover more upcoming updates on our Coming Soon Page.

Embedded thumbnail for Analog Supply without a Ferrite: Proper Isolation Techniques Explained
How-To's
Analog Supply without a Ferrite: Proper Isolation Techniques Explained

In our new tutorial, you'll learn why ferrite beads may not be the best choice for isolating analog and digital supply pins on integrated circuits. Zach Peterson debunks common misconceptions about ferrite bead isolation and introduces better alternatives, including dedicated LDOs, precision voltage references, and effective filtering techniques to help you achieve cleaner analog signals in your designs.

Blog
Signal Mistakes Are Expensive

See how the Signal Analyzer by Keysight in Altium Designer lets you run signal integrity checks directly within your design environment. Read our article to learn how to effectively manage impedance, return paths, stackups, and more.

Embedded thumbnail for Enhanced Constraint Manager in Altium Designer 25. Part II: Physical Constraints and Routing Differential Pairs
Enhanced Constraint Manager in Altium Designer 25
Enhanced Constraint Manager in Altium Designer 25. Part II: Physical Constraints and Routing Differential Pairs

In the second video of Samer Aldhaher’s "Enhanced Constraint Manager" series, we continue designing a 1 kW, 400 V brushless DC motor driver. This episode focuses on setting physical constraints using constraint sets, routing differential pairs, and demonstrating the Auto Shrinking feature in Altium Designer 25.

Tag
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.

Blog
Simple Strategies to Reach 10% PCB Cost Reduction

Our new article outlines strategies to achieve a 10% reduction in PCB costs by optimizing design and material choices, such as adjusting stack-up materials and hole sizes, using lower-cost parts, and considering single-sided assembly. These techniques help reduce expenses without sacrificing quality.

Tag
Embedded thumbnail for Allowing Permanent Display of Some Layers
How-To's
Allowing Permanent Display of Some Layers

This video demonstrates how to permanently display some layers in the PCB using the View configuration panel.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating Rooms in the PCB
How to work with Rooms
Creating Rooms in the PCB

If you want to create a room manually in the PCB or have them generated for the Schematic, Altium Designer allows you to create custom rooms. We’ll show you how to hand draw different rooms, how to create rooms by defining them through the room definition, and how to have them generated for the schematic and pushed through to the PCB by the Engineering Change Order.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a Schematic Symbol - Placing Designators and Comments
How to create a Schematic Symbol
Creating a Schematic Symbol - Placing Designators and Comments

Placing your designator or comments can be done automatically, but that doesn’t mean they’re visible. We’ll walk you through how to make them visible and position them correctly no matter what orientation your symbol is with automatic positioning.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a Schematic Symbol: Adding Additional Parts
How to create a Schematic Symbol
Creating a Schematic Symbol: Adding Additional Parts

Altium Designer makes it easy to add additional parts to your schematic library. We’ll show you how through copying and configuring your new components through the Pin Editor and the properties panel.

Embedded thumbnail for Component Placement Control Using Rooms
How to work with Rooms
Component Placement Control Using Rooms

Rooms give you more control over how and where your components are placed in your PCB. We’ll show you how to use room properties to limit what is allowed in and out of a room using the room definition and custom queries.

Embedded thumbnail for How to work with Differential Pair Classes?
How to Work with Differential Pairs
How to work with Differential Pair Classes?

Modern boards can contain a large number of differential pairs. For convenience, they are combined into differential pairs classes. In this video, we'll walk you through how to create and apply a differential pair class. 

Embedded thumbnail for Adding Rooms from the Schematic
How to work with Rooms
Adding Rooms from the Schematic

Rooms can be added directly from the schematic sheet. From the schematic sheet they are pushed to the PCB. Here we'll look at the rooms and component classes generated by default in the schematic, how to add and configure rooms manually, and how to push them to the PCB.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Draw a Board Outline Using Coordinates
How-To's
How to Draw a Board Outline Using Coordinates

In this video, we cover how to draw a curve by using coordinates. This can be very helpful when creating a board outline.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a Schematic Symbol: Mapping out the Component
How to create a Schematic Symbol
Creating a Schematic Symbol: Mapping out the Component

When creating a schematic symbol, one of your first tasks will be creating a component symbol. We’ll show you how to map out a component in the Schematic Library Editor by creating and configuring the component, adding pins, and creating graphics.

Embedded thumbnail for How and When to Use Rooms
How to work with Rooms
How and When to Use Rooms

Rooms are an extremely valuable tool within the Altium Designer PCB environment, but how and when do you use rooms? If you need to control component placement and layout, assign a specific design rule to a group of items, or if you have repeated channels that need similar layouts in your multichannel design, rooms can make it much easier.

22.5-2_Custom_Diff_Pair_Suffixes
What's New in 22.5
Custom Diff Pair Suffixes

Even more possibilities for creating differential pairs. Now you can use any postfixes to designate positive and negative net of a differential pair.

22.5-2_Custom_Diff_Pair_Suffixes
What's New in 22.5
自定义差分对后缀

更加有利于进行差分对创建。您现在可以使用任何后缀来指定差分对的正网络和负网络。

22.5-3_PCB_Health_Check_Monitor
What's New in 22.5
PCB Health Check Monitor

The condition of the PCB is under your control. A new intelligent feature that gives you confidence that your PCB is okay and complies with design rules.

22.5-3_PCB_Health_Check_Monitor
What's New in 22.5
PCB健康状况检查显示器

PCB的状况将由您控制。您可以通过此项全新智能化功能,确认PCB正常运行且符合设计规则。

Embedded thumbnail for MCAD CoDesigner Quick Start: Autodesk Fusion 360
Working with MCAD CoDesigner extension
MCAD CoDesigner Quick Start: Autodesk Fusion 360

MCAD CoDesigner is built to address the challenges of electronic product design by enabling seamless collaboration between your electrical and mechanical engineers. This video will show you how to start collaborate between Altium Designer and Autodesk Fusion 360. 

Embedded thumbnail for Component Placement Control for DFM
DFM and Fabrication Cost/Time Constraints
Component Placement Control for DFM

Component placement is a crucial part of making sure your design is manufacturable, so you need to be able to control placement. We’ll show you how, through rules and courtyard layers to maintain accessibility and manufacturability in your entire design through component placement control.

Tag
Integrating Requirements June 2025 Webinar
On-Demand Webinar May 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.