Welcome, Guest

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

News & Updates

Filters:
Tag
Embedded thumbnail for Improved Impedance Calculator
New in Altium Designer 20 Apr 29, 2020
Improved Impedance Calculator

The impedance calculator in the Layer Stack Manager now supports single and differential coplanar structures. This video shows how the impedance calculator has been improved with new coplanar transmission line structures, greater control over the dimensional properties of the physical structure, and modeling of Conductor Surface Roughness using Surface Roughness and Roughness Factor values. 

Embedded thumbnail for Propagation Delay Support
New in Altium Designer 20 Apr 27, 2020
Propagation Delay Support

In Altium Designer 20.0, you can now selectively monitor propagation delay along the whole connection or selected objects, such as tracks, pads, and vias.

Embedded thumbnail for New Routing Capabilities
New in Altium Designer 20 Apr 23, 2020
New Routing Capabilities

Advanced routing capabilities help you complete the most basic, as well as the most difficult, routing challenges. In Altium Designer 20.0, we’ve added intelligent control over pad entries that are capable of working with any combination of pad geometry as well as a new any angle routing mode that allows you to make beautiful traces that smoothly contours around obstacles.

Blog 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:

Embedded thumbnail for New Length Tuning Engine
New in Altium Designer 20 Apr 21, 2020
New Length Tuning Engine

The tuning engine in Altium Designer has been redesigned and is now better than ever. Tuning sections can be picked up and moved to new locations on the track. What is truly remarkable is that the tunings are completely dynamic and change shape and fill patterns depending on the boundaries and surroundings.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Assign Names to Polygons
Working with Polygons Apr 3, 2020
How to Assign Names to Polygons

For some polygons, it is not always reasonable to use an automatically generated name so a custom name is needed. With a proper polygon name, you can quickly find the desired polygon in a list and correctly set the pour priority in relation to other polygons. By using unique names, you can create design rules that apply only to specified polygons.

Blog 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.

Embedded thumbnail for How to Use View Mode in Altium Designer Without a License
How-To's Mar 16, 2020
How to Use View Mode in Altium Designer Without a License

In Altium Designer 20.0, you can use Altium Designer in Viewer mode when signed into your AltiumLive account and no active license is being used. The Altium Designer Viewer license can be used by anyone with an AltiumLive account and no other licenses or subscription is needed. The license can be activated from the License Management page. 

Blog 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.

Embedded thumbnail for Any Angle Routing
New in Altium Designer 20 Feb 26, 2020
Any Angle Routing

With any angle routing in Altium Designer, you're able to expertly maneuver around obstacles on a densely populated board, routing deep into your BGA, eliminating the need for extra signal layers. With an intelligent obstacle avoidance algorithm, you're able to avoid obstancles using tangential arcs, making the most efficient use of your board real estate.

Embedded thumbnail for Schematic Dynamic Data Model
New in Altium Designer 20 Feb 26, 2020
Schematic Dynamic Data Model

Recompiling large schematics can take up a lot of time. This is why Altium Designer uses a new dynamic data model, which incrementally and continuously compiles in the background eliminating the need to perform a full design compile.

Embedded thumbnail for Time Based Matched Lengths
New in Altium Designer 20 Feb 26, 2020
Time Based Matched Lengths

High-speed digital circuits depend on signals and data arriving on time. If traces are improperly tuned, flight times vary and data errors can be abundant. Altium Designer 20 introduces the calculation of the propagation time on traces and provides synchronized flight time for high-speed digital signals.

altium-community-forum
Blog 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?

Embedded thumbnail for Schematic Rendering
New in Altium Designer 20 Feb 25, 2020
Schematic Rendering

A smooth and fast schematic experience awaits thanks to DirectX in Altium Designer. This new implementation smoothes out zooming and panning, and also dramatically speeds up copy and paste functionality.

Embedded thumbnail for Properties Panel for Schematics
New in Altium Designer 20 Feb 24, 2020
Properties Panel for Schematics

In Altium Designer version 20.0, the Interactive Properties panel for schematics includes several functional improvements as well as productivity enhancements. The entire layout has been refined to optimize efficiency, icons and graphical previews have been improved, and there is now a smart parameters filter both for schematic lists and components. Dialogs for schematic properties, so beloved by our seasoned users, have returned stronger and better than ever.

Embedded thumbnail for Return Path Design Rule
New in Altium Designer 20 Feb 24, 2020
Return Path Design Rule

High-speed signals create electromagnetic fields that can cause cross-talk or data errors unless proper return paths are provided. Proper return paths allow noise currents to return to ground through a very low impedance, eliminating any problems. The new Return Path design rule monitors return paths and checks for a continuous signal return path on the designated reference layer above or below the signals targeted by the rule.

Embedded thumbnail for Sliding
New in Altium Designer 20 Feb 24, 2020
Sliding

Editing traces to improve signal integrity can be time consuming, especially when you have to edit individual arcs and serpentine tunings. Altium Designer 20 incorporates a new gloss engine and advanced push and shove capabilities to help speed up this process. which improves your productivity.

Embedded thumbnail for Creepage Distance Rule
New in Altium Designer 20 Feb 24, 2020
Creepage Distance Rule

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.

Tag
Blog
PCB Layout Replication Whitepaper

Experience seamless acceleration in your design workflow with Altium Designer® 24's PCB Layout Replication feature. Effortlessly duplicate layouts for recurring circuit blocks and component groups, amplifying efficiency and reducing expenses.

Blog
Custom Pad Stack Whitepaper

Explore our manual on the Custom Pad Stack enhanced feature. From thermal connections to pad shapes, every detail matters. Pads are no longer merely points; they demand unique, tailored solutions. With Altium Designer 24, you can customize pad shapes, fine-tune thermal relief, and master rounded/chamfered rectangle pads to meet manufacturing standards, conquer tight spaces, and elevate your design game significantly.

Blog
Pi.MX8 Project - Board Layout Part 2

We are continuing the exploration of board layout in our Pi.MX8 Project. In this chapter, we focus on defining the impedance profiles, establishing matching design rules for the correct trace width, and initiating the routing of the DRAM interface.

Blog
Constraint Manager Whitepaper

Explore the precision of PCB design with Altium Designer's latest Constraint Manager! Hone your skills in component positioning, routing, and rule definition to enhance your design capabilities with Altium's state-of-the-art tools. Discover more about this cutting-edge feature in the manual today.

Blog
USB to Serial-Over-RJ45 Module

Have you considered converting a USB interface to serial (UART), while delivering data over a custom Ethernet cable and RJ45 connectors? If so, we invite you to check out this article on building a USB to Serial-Over-RJ45 Module. Additionally, you'll find a link to our workspace to explore the entire project.

Blog
Pi.MX8 Project - Board Layout Part 1

Our exploration of the Pi.MX8 open-source computer module project progresses. In this third chapter, our focus shifts to the PCB layout preparation of the board. Key topics include defining the layerstack and component break-out routing.

Tag
NEW
Embedded thumbnail for  Improve Visual Accuracy with True Arcs
New in Altium's Software
Improve Visual Accuracy with True Arcs

Discover how True Arc Rendering improves arc visualization in the PCB Editor and PCB Library Editor by displaying true arcs across 2D, 3D, and Board Planning modes. This provides a more accurate representation of board geometry and helps you work with curved features with greater precision throughout the design process.

NEW
Embedded thumbnail for Two engineers, one board, nobody's work gets wiped out
Collaborative Engineering with Team Ribbot
Two engineers, one board, nobody's work gets wiped out

When Team Ribbot’s electrical and mechanical engineers work on the same combat-robot design, unwanted changes can mean hours of lost work. See how Altium Designer and MCAD CoDesign let the team review and selectively accept changes, enabling seamless parallel collaboration across different locations and schedules.

Embedded thumbnail for Visualize and Refine Your Harness Designs
New in Altium's Software
Visualize and Refine Your Harness Designs

Create detailed views of bundle contents, control wire and cable paths, and rotate physical models to accurately represent the final harness assembly. These capabilities give you greater control over harness design and help ensure your digital model reflects the physical result.

Embedded thumbnail for Introducing Agentic Requirements Engineering
New in Altium's Software
Introducing Agentic Requirements Engineering

Discover a new way to work with Requirements Portal through Agentic Requirements Engineering. AI agents analyze your project data and surface proposals for your approval, reducing friction in requirements management and helping align your team's shared model with your design intent.

Embedded thumbnail for Simplify Rule Set Updates and Replacement
New in Altium's Software
Simplify Rule Set Updates and Replacement

Learn how to import rule sets with greater flexibility in Altium. When importing rules, you can add new rules to your existing set, replace only rules that match, or completely replace the current rule set giving you full control over how design rules are updated.

Embedded thumbnail for  How Team Ribbot fits 40 kW of power into a 250-pound combat robot
Collaborative Engineering with Team Ribbot
How Team Ribbot fits 40 kW of power into a 250-pound combat robot

What do you get when you pack the power of a small electric car into a combat robot with virtually no room to spare? In the first episode of our collaboration with Team Ribbot and Altium, explore how seamless ECAD-MCAD collaboration helps the team tackle complex design challenges, optimize high-performance designs, reduce errors, and bring products to life faster.

Embedded thumbnail for Just Released: Supplier Data Merging
New in Altium's Software
Just Released: Supplier Data Merging

Discover how the Supplier Data Merging feature brings together supplier information from your custom parts database and the Altium Parts Provider into a single, unified view. Access consolidated supplier data wherever supplier part numbers appear, including in ActiveBOM and during component selection.

Embedded thumbnail for How Altium’s Layer Stack Manager Actually Works
How-To's
How Altium’s Layer Stack Manager Actually Works

Take a look inside Altium's Layer Stack Manager and discover how its impedance calculator determines the ideal trace width for your target impedance. In this video, we break down the "black box" behind the calculation and show how the Simbeor-based field solver provides accurate results while eliminating the need for advanced field solver expertise.

Embedded thumbnail for Connect Requirements Directly to Your PCB Design
New in Altium's Software
Connect Requirements Directly to Your PCB Design

See how the Requirements Portal integration in Altium Designer simplifies requirements management by bringing system requirements directly into your PCB design workflow. Connect requirements to design documents, assign tasks, track verification in real time, and keep your entire team aligned with seamless synchronization in Altium 365.

Embedded thumbnail for SFP Connector Routing: High-Speed Differential Pair Design Tips
How-To's
SFP Connector Routing: High-Speed Differential Pair Design Tips

Discover practical SFP and SFP+ routing tips in our latest video, inspired by a real question from the Altium subreddit. We cover how aggressive serpentine length tuning can be, how to reduce impedance discontinuities in tight meanders, and how meandering influences mode conversion at 10G and higher data rates.

Embedded thumbnail for Handle High-Density PCB Layouts with Ease
New in Altium's Software
Handle High-Density PCB Layouts with Ease

Push the limits of PCB design with support for up to 128 signal layers, empowering the development of even the most complex, high-density boards.

Embedded thumbnail for Skip Layer Routing for RF: Control Impedance & Cut Insertion Loss
How-To's
Skip Layer Routing for RF: Control Impedance & Cut Insertion Loss

Discover our latest video and learn how RF designers use a deeper ground plane to minimize skin-effect resistance, improve signal integrity over long high-frequency routes, and optimize impedance matching for oversized SMT pads in antenna launches and coaxial connectors.

Embedded thumbnail for Just Released: ODB++ Intellectual Property Protection
New in Altium's Software
Just Released: ODB++ Intellectual Property Protection

ODB++ Intellectual Property Protection lets you control exactly what design data is included in the ODB++ output, ensuring each manufacturing partner receives only the information needed for their specific fabrication or assembly tasks.

Embedded thumbnail for Future of Electronics Development in Security and Aerospace
How-To's
Future of Electronics Development in Security and Aerospace

See the highlights from Altium's executive event in Hamburg, where Security and Aerospace leaders explored AI-driven development, digital engineering, supply chain resilience, and the future of mission-critical electronics.

Embedded thumbnail for Create Clearance Rules Faster and with Less Effort
New in Altium's Software
Create Clearance Rules Faster and with Less Effort

Setting up clearance rules is now more intuitive in the Constraint Manager. Choose the Simple view for faster configuration with grouped object types, or the Advanced view when you need detailed, matrix-based clearance control.

Embedded thumbnail for Mastering HDI Design Rules in Altium Designer
How-To's
Mastering HDI Design Rules in Altium Designer

In our latest Altium Academy tutorial, we guide you through configuring the essential HDI PCB design rules in Altium's software. You'll learn how to use your manufacturer's fabrication capabilities to create accurate design rules and constraints for your PCB.

Tag
Your search returns no results.