News & Updates
Blog
•
How to Design a Hybrid PCB Stackup
The first question that should come up when selecting materials and planning a stackup is: what materials are needed and how many layers should be used? Assuming you’ve determined you need a low-loss laminate and you’ve determined your required layer count, it’s time to consider whether you should use a hybrid stackup. There are a few broad situations where you could consider using a hybrid stackup with low-loss laminates in your PCB
Blog
•
Efficient Battery Power Supplies
Batteries offer a great power source for electrical devices that need to be mobile or located somewhere where connection to a mains electricity supply or other power source is impossible. The biggest problem with battery power is the expectation of users that the device will operate for significant periods with the need for recharging or replacing the batteries. This demand is placing the onus on the designer to improve efficiency and reduce power demand to meet this need.
Blog
•
What Target Impedance Should You Use in Your PDN?
A number of us on this blog and in other publications often bring up the concept of target impedance when discussing power integrity in high-speed designs. Some designs will be simple enough that you can take a “set it and forget it” approach to design a functional prototype. For more advanced designs, or if you’re fine-tuning a new board that has existing power integrity problems, target impedance is a real consideration that should be considered in your design.
Blog
•
An Overview of Dual Power Supply Design
Dual power supplies are circuits that generate two different output voltages from a single input source. The simplest method of generating dual output voltages is to use a transformer with two taps on the output winding. Bespoke transformers can have any voltage ratio depending on the number of windings in each part of the output side of the transformer.
Blog
•
Overlapping Planes in Your Mixed-Signal PCB Layout
With digital boards that are nominally running at DC, splitting up a power plane or using multiple power planes is a necessity for routing large currents at standard core/logic levels to digital components. Once you start mixing analog and digital sections into your power layers with multiple nets, it can be difficult to implement clean power in a design if you’re not careful with your layout.
On-Demand Webinar
•
ECAD MCAD Capabilities For Today’s Most Demanding Designs
Working between the Electronic and Mechanical design domains brings unique challenges. ECAD and MCAD tools have different design objectives and have evolved down different paths, and so have the way they store and manage their design and project data. To successfully design these products, the designers must fluidly pass design changes back and forth between the ECAD and MCAD domains beyond outdated file exchanges.
Blog
•
Follow Mixed Signal PCB Design Guidelines With the Best CAD Tools
High-speed digital PCBs are challenging enough to design, but what about mixed-signal boards? Many modern systems contain elements that operate with both digital and analog signaling, and these systems must be designed to ensure signal integrity in both domains. Altium Designer has the layout and signal integrity tools you need to ensure your mixed-signal PCB design does not experience interference and obeys important design standards.
Blog
•
Get Ready for WiFi 7 under the 802.11be Standard
Just as WiFi 6 and 6E are starting to hit the market and new chipsets become available, WiFi 7 is in the works under the 802.11be standard. While this technology still has not hit the market, I would expect more inquiries for experimental systems, evaluation modules, and surface-mountable modules to come up once the first chipsets become available. Now is the time to start thinking about these systems, especially if you’re developing evaluation products to support WiFi 7.
Blog
•
What Goes Into Rugged Electronics Design?
Rugged electronics need to take a punch mechanically, but there is more that goes into a rugged system than being able to survive a drop on the pavement. This is as much about enclosure design as it is about component selection and manufacturing choices. Mil-aero designers often use the term “harsh environment” to describe a number of scenarios where an electronic device’s reliability and lifetime will be put to the test. If you want to make your next product truly rugged, it helps to adopt some of their strategies in your PCB layout.
Blog
•
PCB Testing 101: Important Methods and Metrics
There are many quality checks used to ensure a design will be manufacturable at scale and with high quality, but a lot of this can happen in the background without the designer realizing. No matter what level of testing and inspection you need to perform, it’s important to determine the basic test requirements your design must satisfy and communicate these to your manufacturer. If it’s your first time transitioning from prototyping to high-volume production, read our list of PCB testing requirements so that you’ll know what to expect.
On-Demand Webinar
•
Getting Started with Design Rules and Constraints
Getting started with design rules can sometimes be a difficult task, but it doesn’t have to be. Altium Designer has added a new design rules user interface along with a new way to define rules, while not compromising past methods. Now, rules and constraints have a design-centric view rather than a rules-centric view which allows for easier visualization and is less prone to error. Watch this video to learn how you can best utilize the improved Rules 2.0 design rule interface.
NEW
Blog
•
What Is Collaborative Engineering?
Collaborative engineering is all about breaking down silos so electrical, mechanical, and sourcing teams can work as one with shared data and real-time updates. This article shows how that approach helps you spot issues early, reduce rework, and get products out the door with fewer surprises.
NEW
Blog
•
Bend Reliability: How Trace Geometry and Materials Impact Flex Lifespan
Focused on durability under repeated mechanical stress, this piece details how routing strategy, copper thickness, adhesive systems, and bend radius selection determine flex lifespan. Engineers will find actionable recommendations for reducing strain concentration and improving long-term performance in high-cycle applications.
Blog
•
PCB Design Process: The EDA Design Approach
Dive into how a modern EDA workflow transforms PCB design by linking electrical, mechanical, and manufacturing requirements from idea to final release. With constraint‑driven integration, you can cut down on respins and bring better boards to market faster.
Blog
•
Getting Started for Mechanical Engineers
Explore our collection of MCAD Collaboration walkthroughs, where you’ll discover how to synchronize mechanical constraints and keepouts, maintain traceability with advanced history and revision control, and streamline electromechanical connectivity through harness synchronization. These topics and many more are covered in this article.
Blog
•
Are Your ECAD Tools Holding Back Engineers’ Productivity?
The article highlights that productivity issues often stem from tool limitations rather than engineer effort, especially as project complexity grows. ECAD tools that offer clear version control, cross-discipline integration, and workflow awareness are key to sustaining efficiency.
Blog
•
How Integrated PCB Design Cuts Development Time for Complex Electronics
Fewer tool handoffs, fewer errors, and smoother collaboration that’s the power of integrated PCB design. Learn how unifying your design environment can cut development time and help you deliver complex electronics faster.
Blog
•
Registration Challenges in UHDI: Why Fabrication Tolerances Matter in Your Layout
As UHDI structures shrink, achieving accurate layer-to-layer registration becomes less forgiving than ever. Learn why fabrication tolerances matter so much in ultra-fine geometries and how to design with registration limits in mind from the start.
Blog
•
How Engineering Project Management Tools Are Changing Engineering Teams’ Productivity
Engineering project management tools play a critical role in managing timelines, resources, and cross-disciplinary coordination. This article breaks down the most impactful systems for improving execution and team performance.
Blog
•
7 Ways to Catch Rules & Constraints Early – Checklist
Discover seven actionable ways to spot and fix rules and constraint issues before they derail your PCB project. Using Altium Designer Agile, these tips help you build more manufacturable and reliable boards with fewer iterations.
Blog
•
Do You Need an IPC-D-356 Netlist?
If your output package is Gerber-based, adding an IPC-D-356 netlist can dramatically improve how your design is reviewed and validated for production. Here’s when it matters, what it contains, and how to generate it quickly in Altium.
Blog
•
How Agile BOM Management Helps You Lock in Pricing Before Market Shifts
When engineering and procurement work from different BOM versions, delays and cost surprises follow. Learn how agile BOM management brings teams onto one connected BOM so they can respond fast, manage risk, and lock pricing early.
Blog
•
Flexible Circuits: Enhancing Performance with Shielding, Heat Dissipation, and Stiffeners
A flex circuit can look perfect on paper and still fail in the real world due to EMI, hot spots, or mechanical strain. This article breaks down how shielding, thermal planning, and stiffeners help deliver designs that stay reliable over time.
Blog
•
Avoid These Top 3 Power Distribution Failures in PCB Design
Power distribution issues can silently undermine your PCB’s reliability. This article uncovers the top three failure modes and shows how Power Analyzer by Keysight helps you catch them early in the design phase and how Altium Agile Teams turns those checks into structured team action.
Blog
•
From BOM to Requirements and Back: Building Sourcing Constraints Into Specs
When engineering and procurement remain disconnected, supply-chain problems will sneak up on you. This guide argues convincingly: embed sourcing constraints into your requirements from day one, and avoid costly rework down the line.
Blog
•
Understanding Power Integrity in PCB Design: Power Analyzer by Keysight Whitepaper
Power integrity is the backbone of reliable PCB design. This whitepaper explains how to analyze and optimize voltage drop, current density, and grounding directly within Altium Designer Agile using the Power Analyzer by Keysight.
Blog
•
How to Manage ECAD Libraries for Consistent PCB Layout Design
Strong hardware starts with strong libraries. Discover how disciplined ECAD-library management dramatically improves design consistency and accelerates every stage of your PCB workflow.
Your search returns no results.
