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Embedded thumbnail for AC Coupling Capacitors: Placement for High-Speed PCB Design
How-To's
AC Coupling Capacitors: Placement for High-Speed PCB Design

Learn the facts about AC coupling capacitor placement in high-speed PCB designs. In this video, Zach Peterson explores the ongoing debate: should AC coupling capacitors be placed near the transmitter or the receiver in high-speed differential pairs?

Embedded thumbnail for Coming Soon: Export 3D-MID Tracks as Centerline Curves
New in Altium Designer 25
Coming Soon: Export 3D-MID Tracks as Centerline Curves

Coming Soon: 3D-MID Track-to-Centerline Export allows you to export conductive tracks on 3D substrates as precise centerline curves within STEP files—enabling seamless integration with advanced 5-axis manufacturing processes. Explore more upcoming upgrades on our Coming Soon page.

Embedded thumbnail for Advanced xSignal and Impedance Control Techniques - Recording Preview
New in Altium Designer 25
Advanced xSignal and Impedance Control Techniques - Recording Preview

This webinar recording explores advanced xSignal and impedance control techniques in Altium Designer 25. It covers defining xSignals, managing impedance profiles, differential pairs, and delay tuning—all essential for high-speed PCB design. Full recording you find here: April 2025 COM Webinar Recording.

Embedded thumbnail for Coming Soon: Embedded 3D Models for Harness Designs
How-To's
Coming Soon: Embedded 3D Models for Harness Designs

Coming soon: the Embedded 3D Models for Harness Designs feature will automatically include Parasolid-format 3D models in your harness layout drawings. This improves integration with MCAD CoDesigner, enabling seamless synchronization between electrical and mechanical design domains. To see more upcoming upgrades, visit our Coming Soon page.

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New in Altium Designer 25
Make Smarter Design Decisions with Signal Analyzer by Keysight

Discover how to simplify your workflow and boost design confidence with Signal Analyzer by Keysight—a complete extension available right inside Altium Designer 25. This whitepaper shows you how to analyze impedance, delay, and insertion/return loss without ever leaving your design environment.

Blog
Printed Electronics: The Future of Flexible and Cost-Effective Circuit Design

This article explores the rise of printed electronics as a lightweight, flexible, and cost-effective alternative to traditional PCB design. It highlights key benefits like reduced manufacturing costs, sustainability, and new design possibilities—especially in wearables, medical devices, and automotive applications. 

Embedded thumbnail for Unveiling 86% Task Time Efficiency in Altium Designer 25
Altium Designer's 25 Quantitative Benefits
Unveiling 86% Task Time Efficiency in Altium Designer 25

Watch how Altium Designer 25 saves time on PCB visualization. This short video shows a side-by-side comparison of the same task done in Altium Designer 25 vs. an external CAD tool—revealing big time and click savings. A great teaser to highlight the value of the unified design environment and promote the Benefit Calculator.

Embedded thumbnail for AGND vs PGND: Proper Net Tie Connections in Power Regulator PCB Design
How-To's
AGND vs PGND: Proper Net Tie Connections in Power Regulator PCB Design

What’s the difference between AGND and PGND — and when should you use a net tie? Zach Peterson breaks down proper PCB layout for buck converters, grounding best practices, and why component placement matters in switching regulator designs.

Blog
New Routing Possibilities with Ultra HDI

Explore how Ultra HDI technology is redefining PCB design. This article breaks down the benefits and manufacturing considerations of Ultra HDI, and how it enables next-level routing density and miniaturization in advanced electronics.

Blog
3D-MID in Focus: Principles, Processes, and Practical Use

This article introduces 3D-MID (Mechatronic Integrated Devices), a technology that integrates circuitry into 3D plastic structures to reduce size, weight, and complexity. It explains the production process, use cases, and benefits of 3D-MID in sectors like automotive, medical, and consumer electronics.

Embedded thumbnail for  Students at Monash UAS Fly Higher with Altium Solutions to Power Their Autonomous Drone Technology
Altium Stories
Students at Monash UAS Fly Higher with Altium Solutions to Power Their Autonomous Drone Technology

Discover how the Monash Uncrewed Aerial Systems team leverages Altium Designer, MCAD CoDesigner, and Altium 365 to develop custom drone boards for critical humanitarian missions.

Blog
Eliminate EMI and Signal Integrity Issues in Multi-Board PCB Designs

Ensure signal integrity and minimize EMI in complex electronics. Our new article explains how to address electromagnetic interference and signal integrity challenges in multi-board PCB designs, offering practical strategies and layout considerations for reliable system performance.

Embedded thumbnail for Say Goodbye to Disjointed Workflows: Unified Product Design in Altium Designer 25
New in Altium Designer 25
Say Goodbye to Disjointed Workflows: Unified Product Design in Altium Designer 25

Check an overview of how Altium Designer 25 unifies Multi-Board and Harness Design into a seamless, efficient workflow for faster, error-free product development.

Embedded thumbnail for From Concept to Reality: Updated 3D-MID Demo in Altium Designer 25
New in Altium Designer 25
From Concept to Reality: Updated 3D-MID Demo in Altium Designer 25

A walkthrough of the new 3D-MID capabilities in Altium Designer 25. Covers setting up a 3D PCB document, component placement on curved surfaces, routing with grids and sketches, exporting for LDS manufacturing, and generating a 3D pick-and-place file.

Embedded thumbnail for Take 66% of Your Time Back with Custom Pad Stack in Altium Designer 25
Altium Designer's 25 Quantitative Benefits
Take 66% of Your Time Back with Custom Pad Stack in Altium Designer 25

This video demonstrates the measurable productivity gains of using the Custom Pad Stack tool in Altium Designer 25. It compares a detailed QFN-32 footprint customization process across versions, showing a significant reduction in time and mouse clicks—2 min 5 sec vs. 6 min 2 sec, and 45 vs. 116 clicks.

Tag
NEW
Blog
How Structural Electronics Enables 3D, Flexible, and Wearable Integration

Structural electronics integrates electronic functionality directly into the physical structure of a product, eliminating the need for traditional circuit boards. This article examines how advances in materials, additive manufacturing, and flexible substrates are enabling compact, 3D, and wearable systems with enhanced performance and design freedom.

Blog
Most Common Causes of PCB Assembly Rework and Scrap

Many PCB assemblies fail not because of exotic faults, but due to basic issues like incorrect BOM entries or footprint mismatches that force rework or scrap. This article dives into the most common causes and how to prevent costly defects in your design-to-manufacturing process.

Blog
Behind the Scenes with AI Embedded Development

Forget one-shot AI hacks Ari Mahpour shows the thoughtful, sustainable way to integrate AI into embedded firmware development. Learn the core principles (planning gate, HAL abstraction, observability, timeout design) that can help you push your efficiency 5-10 times in real hardware projects.

Blog
We're heading to PCB West 2025!

Join Altium at PCB West 2025 in Santa Clara, CA, on October 1! Stop by Booth 300 for the official launch of the new Altium platform, built on the foundation of Altium Designer and Altium 365. Be sure to check out our live demos of Altium Develop and Altium Agile.

Blog
Peak Electrical Performance in Multi-Board Designs With Advanced Simulation and Compliance Tools

Moving from single-board to multi-board systems is a leap in complexity. You must manage not just routing, but power, signal integrity, mechanical fit, and regulatory requirements across boards. In this article, you’ll discover how Altium’s advanced simulation and compliance tools help engineering teams overcome these challenges and deliver reliable multi-board solutions.

Blog
Executive Insights Into Electronic Product Development Gaps You Need To Close

Electronics hardware development is falling behind broader product development disciplines due to fragmented workflows, poor collaboration, and limited compliance visibility. This gap introduces risk, delays, and missed opportunities but executives see real business value in modernizing electronics development through better integration, traceability, and lifecycle visibility.

Blog
Sourcing For High-Mix Low-Volume Electronics Manufacturing

High-mix, low-volume (HMLV) electronics manufacturing requires agile sourcing strategies to handle shifting BOMs, erratic lead times, and component volatility. All while controlling costs and ensuring compliance. Cloud-based tools like Altium provide real-time component visibility, BOM collaboration, and supplier integrations to help navigate HMLV complexities.

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.

Blog
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.

Tag
Embedded thumbnail for What is the Draftsman Document?
How to Work with Draftsman
What is the Draftsman Document?

Once your PCB layout is finished it’s time for review. This is where the Draftsman Document and Altium Designer’s Draftsman Editor comes in.

Embedded thumbnail for Adding Project Modules to a Multi-board Schematic
How to work with Multiboard
Adding Project Modules to a Multi-board Schematic

If you’re using multiple PCBs in your Multi-board design, Altium Designer allows you to add existing projects directly to your schematic with modules. We’ll show you how to quickly and efficiently add these projects to your Multi-board design.

Embedded thumbnail for Checking for Creepage in High Voltage Designs
How-To's
Checking for Creepage in High Voltage Designs

High voltage devices have leakage currents that propage over the surface of the board. In such devices, it's important to consider not only the standard gap between the two topological elements, but also the shortest possible path between them, taking into account cut-outs and holes. With Altium Designer 20, you can check for creepage using the new creepage distance rule.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating BGA Footprints with the Footprint Wizard
How to create a PCB Footprint
Creating BGA Footprints with the Footprint Wizard

Altium Designer makes it easy to create a BGA footprint using our IPC compliant footprint wizard. We'll show you how easily you can create and modify a BGA footprint using the footprint wizard.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Remove Unused Pad Shapes
How-To's
How to Remove Unused Pad Shapes

Unused pad shapes can cause distortion among other problems so it is best to exclude them from your designs. This video shows how to remove unused pad shapes.

Embedded thumbnail for Stackup Presets and Templates
How to work with Layer Stack Manager
Stackup Presets and Templates

In this video, we will learn how to apply predefined layer stacks to the board, as well as how to save the layer stack file as a template.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a PCB Footprint Assembly Drawing
How to create a PCB Footprint
Creating a PCB Footprint Assembly Drawing

If you need to create an assembly drawing of your PCB Footprint for your outjob files we can show you how in Altium Designer. We’ll walk through all the different options for your assembly drawing in your Draftsman document, how to create your assembly drawing and assign it designators.

Embedded thumbnail for Using the ActiveBOM
How-To's
Using the ActiveBOM

Using the ActiveBOM: The Bill of Materials (BOM) contains a list of all the components with their designators, part numbers, values, and other parameters. An ActiveBOM manages the mapping from the design component (part) to the part that is purchased. This video describes how to use the ActiveBOM document to create an up-to-date list of components needed for your project.

Embedded thumbnail for Using Back Drills in your Stackup
How to work with Layer Stack Manager
Using Back Drills in your Stackup

In this video, we will learn about Back Drilling technology, how to set up back drilling using the layer stack manager, and how to set up the Stub Length sizes for back drilling by specifying applicable nets using the Design Rules Editor.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Customize The Properties Panel
How-To's
How to Customize The Properties Panel

How to Customize The Properties Panel: This video will go over how to customize the look and feel of the properties panel in Altium Designer. By being able to personalize your workspace you can greatly improve your efficiency

Embedded thumbnail for How to Create and Use Impedance Profiles
How to work with Layer Stack Manager
How to Create and Use Impedance Profiles

Using the Altium Designer Layer Stack Manager, we will show how to create impedance profiles for transmission lines and how to apply them to the circuit board using the PCB Rules and Constraints Editor.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a PCB Footprint Courtyard
How to create a PCB Footprint
Creating a PCB Footprint Courtyard

The courtyard is an essential piece when you want to create a PCB Footprint in Altium Designer. We’ll talk about what a courtyard is, how to create a courtyard, and how to format a courtyard correctly for your PCB footprint.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Edit Existing Tracks in Altium Designer
How-To's
How to Edit Existing Tracks in Altium Designer

This new design rule flags a violation when the creepage distance across non-conductive surface and edge regions of the board, between the targeted signals, is equal to or less than the specified Creepage distance.

Embedded thumbnail for Creating a PCB Footprint Silkscreen Overlay
How to create a PCB Footprint
Creating a PCB Footprint Silkscreen Overlay

When creating a PCB footprint in Altium Designer creating a silkscreen overlay is an important requirement. We’ll go over the standards for creating a silkscreen overlay for a footprint and the steps to creating one, such as constructing lines and measuring distance of objects and primitives.

Tuning
What's New in 22.7
Ability to Change Tuning Object Layer Properties

Design of high-speed PCBs becomes easier with this latest release. Now, when you need to quickly move tuning elements to a different layer, you can do so from the Properties panel with a single click.

Tuning
What's New in 22.7
更改调节对象层属性功能

本次发布后,即可更加轻松地进行高速PCB设计。现在,当您需要将调节元件快速移动到其他层时,仅需单击一次即可从Properties面板中执行此操作。

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