News & Updates
Get ready to speed up your design process with new Altium Designer collaboration capabilities. Designing a PCB is a team effort. Engineers must work with customers, manufacturers, and other stakeholders to get the best results. You need help to bring your design to life, even if you're a one-person team.
If you’re waiting for truly connected cars on a grand scale, there is still a massive amount of work to be done, both on the hardware and software sides. Connected cars can only become a widespread reality once the automotive industry and telecom carriers can decide which protocol will work best for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication. PCB designers will then need to step in to create these systems and fit them into a vehicular environment.
This one area of PCB design can be contentious among some designers as it is related to copper pour, which it is often stated is not needed in most designs. Regardless of your feelings about copper pour, stitching vias have important uses in PCBs at low frequencies and at high frequencies.
The IPC-2221 standard includes many requirements for printed circuit board design and manufacturability, and there are several online calculators that have been developed based on this standard.
When you’re ready to manufacture a new device at production volume, there are many aspects of the product that must come together. The enclosure, cabling and connectors, embedded software/firmware, and of course the PCBA all have to be considered in totality. There is a quick way to get your product into a usable enclosure, complete with input power and cabling, and with a form factor that fits your PCBA. This overused route to a new product is a box build assembly.
It is essential to ask questions and review the design approaches used with your team. Design reviews are essential in the design process, but they can be inconvenient for team members and lack traceability or history. To create the best designs, you need review methods that are as cutting edge as the boards you're making.
Printed circuit board fabricators have become skilled at manufacturing these technologies and also at understanding the reliability and producibility challenges associated with high-density-interconnect technology. Let’s look at where the PCB industry is at today.
What can the industry do to support PCB designers as they continue taking a more active role in product development? Here at Altium, there has been a progressive shift towards looking at the system level and creating tools that get designers more involved throughout the product development process. As the saying goes, over the wall engineering is over… today’s most successful products are built in a collaborative process.
As the 5G rollout progresses and researchers continue to discuss 6G, many new 5G-capable products operating in sub-GHz and mmWave bands are reaching the marketplace. Devices that will include a 5G-compatible front-end, whether small stations/repeaters or handheld devices, use phased arrays as high-gain antenna systems to provide high data throughput without losing range at higher frequencies.
This article walks through the complete PCB design workflow, from schematic capture and component selection to layout, design reviews, and manufacturing documentation. It highlights the key decisions at each stage that help engineering teams produce reliable, manufacturable products.
The biggest threat to your power integrity might be outdated design advice. This article challenges five common AC power integrity myths and shows what really matters when designing today's high-speed PCBs.
Your design data may be more exposed than you think. This webinar shows how to identify common security gaps and secure engineering workflows with centralized access control and governance.
Your flex PCB may look perfect in CAD but coverlay doesn't stay perfectly still during manufacturing. This article reveals why designing for lamination behavior is one of the most important steps in building reliable flex circuits.
As hardware development grows more collaborative, disconnected point tools can introduce data inconsistencies, traceability gaps, and costly coordination challenges. This article examines how integrated PCB design environments connect design, mechanical, supply chain, and review workflows to improve efficiency throughout the product lifecycle.
Signal integrity and power integrity are closely connected, with problems in one often affecting the other as designs become faster and more complex. This webinar explains how integrated analysis workflows help engineers evaluate PDN performance, identify potential issues early, and improve overall design quality.
Every manual handoff adds time and risk to the product development process. This article shows how modern design workflows automate routine tasks, improve data visibility, and help engineering teams focus on innovation instead of administration.
Your signal may be perfect on the PCB and fail the moment it crosses a connector. This article explores the hidden SI challenges in multi-board systems and how engineers can eliminate them before they become costly debugging sessions.
Still building BOMs the hard way? Discover how modern workflows can help you create a prototype-ready BOM faster while improving visibility into pricing, availability, and risk.
This article examines the challenges of maintaining power integrity and controlling EMI in complex multiboard systems. It provides practical strategies for managing return paths, connector transitions, and power distribution across interconnected assemblies.
Learn how Agile Teams evolves beyond traditional PCB design workflows to support connected product development. This webinar explores how centralized data, collaboration tools, and governance capabilities help teams accelerate delivery while maintaining control.
Using separate tools often creates inefficiencies and increases the risk of mistakes. This article explains how integrated design environments streamline workflows by keeping design data connected and accessible.
PCB design challenges change significantly as organizations scale. This article explores the key differences between mid-size and enterprise design environments, from collaboration and governance to data management and workflow automation.
Not all BOM solutions work the same way. This article explains the key differences between BOM tools and BOM portals, and why real-time data and collaboration are becoming essential for modern electronics development.
Starting with a simple board today doesn't mean your next project will stay simple. Learn how Altium Designer and KiCAD compare when designs become more complex, teams get larger, and products move toward manufacturing.
Learn how Agile Teams and Duro connect design and production workflows through a unified system of record. This webinar shows how structured change management and automated data synchronization help teams reduce errors and accelerate product releases.