News & Updates
Blog
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DFM in PCB Material Selection
Every design should begin with selecting the materials that will appear in the PCB stackup, as well as arranging layers in the stackup to support layout and routing. This section of our PCB manufacturing andc DFM crash course focuses on selecting the right materials for your PCB design. Materials should be selected given the particular design requirements outlined in your specifications.
Blog
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How to Start an FPGA PCB Layout For Your Embedded System
FPGAs come in quad or BGA packages that can be difficult to floorplan, especially with the high number of I/Os often implemented in these components. FPGAs offer a lot of advantages in terms of their reconfigurability, but they can require a lot of effort to layout and route without headaches. If you’ve never worked with an FPGA in your PCB layout, we have some guidelines that can help you get started.
Blog
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How to Get 3-port S-parameters From a 2-port VNA Measurement
S-parameters are fundamental quantities in signal integrity, and an ability to understand them from measurement or analysis is very important. If you have a 3-port network, like a power divider or circulator, it may appear that you must use a 3-port VNA to measure these S-parameters. It is always acceptable to measure between two ports, but you need to know what exactly it is you are measuring. In this article, we’ll look at the relationship between the true 3-port S-parameters with a 2-port measurement.
Blog
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A Day in the Life of the PCB Manufacturing Process
Before implementing design for manufacturing, it is important to understand the underlying process behind producing a physical PCB. Regardless of the various technologies present in each facility, a large majority of industry-leading manufacturers follow a specific set of steps to turn your design from a drawing in a CAD application into a physical board. In this article, we'll cover the basics that designers need to know as part of our crash course series on PCB manufacturing.
Blog
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Addressing Skew Sources in High Speed PCBs
If you compile a list of skew sources, you'll see that fiber weave-induced skew is only one entry on a long list of skew sources. We'll look at this list of possible skew sources below, and we'll see how they affect the operation of your PCB. From the list below, we'll see that some of these issues with skew are not simply solved by paying attention to the fiber weave construction in a PCB substrate.
On-Demand Webinar
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Advanced Topics in High-Speed Design
This track is for the engineer who understands high-speed design requirements and wants to learn design practices to help ensure signal integrity and EMC with fast digital protocols, mixed-signal boards, and high layer counts.
Blog
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Should Ground Be Placed Below Inductors in Switching Regulators?
We love answering questions from our readers and YouTube viewers, and one of the recent questions we received relates to EMI from switching elements in a switching regulator is "Should a cutout be placed below the inductor in a switching regulator circuit?". Despite the variations in inductors and their magnetic behavior, there are some general principles that can be used to judge the effects of placing ground near inductors in switching regulator circuits. We’ll look at some of these principles in this article
Blog
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Altium Designer 22.6 Update
We are happy to announce that the Altium Designer 22.6 update is now available. Altium Designer 22.6 continues to focus on improving the user experience, as well as performance and stability of the software, based on feedback from our users. Check out the key new features in the What's New section on the left side of this window!
Blog
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Join PCB Design Review Competition from Altium
Find 9 mistakes in a PCB design and get added into the lucky draw to win a prize from Altium!
On-Demand Webinar
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What’s New in Altium 365
Now you can assess your library’s health at a glance with the Library Health dashboard, view and share your bill of materials (BOM) and view and download PDF documents, all in your web browser. We improved the existing diff and compare features, and released a new version of MCAD CoDesigner. Register for the webinar to learn more!
Blog
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Apr 27, 2020
Introduction to High Speed PCB Designing: How to Eliminate Crosstalk
Crosstalk on your PCB layout can be disastrous. If not corrected, crosstalk can cause your finished circuit board to either not work at all, or it may be plagued by intermittent problems. Let’s take a look at what crosstalk is and what you can do to prevent it.
Blog
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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:
Blog
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Mar 20, 2020
A Message from Altium on COVID-19
We understand that many of you, like ourselves, have transitioned to working remotely. This process comes with its challenges and we would like to offer all and any help we can to minimize disruptions for your teams and business.
Blog
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Mar 2, 2020
About Altium Designer Home Page
With the new Altium Designer Home page, we are aiming to help users stay up to date with the latest features and productivity tricks available in Altium Designer. Learn more about the Home page in this documentation article.
Blog
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Feb 25, 2020
Getting Connected: Altium’s User Community Forums
The Altium design environment is a complex and sophisticated set of software tools. Not surprisingly, becoming proficient with these tools will take some time, and you’ll need to practice every step of the design process from beginning to end. So what happens if you get stuck along the way?
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