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Explore content from blog posts to technical white papers gathered together for your convenience. All written by Altium's community of PCB design experts.

SOURCE® Hydropanels Renewable Clean Water from the Air Cody Friesen joins the OnTrack podcast to discuss materials science, entrepreneurship, the ASUIO competition, and how he came to develop the hydropanel. Read Article
WiFi 6 PCB Design Guide and 802.11 Standards Your next PCB might need WiFi 6 capabilities. Here’s what you need to know about WiFi 6 PCB design and layout. Read Article
Should You Use Power MOSFETs in Parallel? Placing elements like power MOSFETs in parallel can help you distribute current throughout multiple circuit elements, but be careful with this arrangement. Read Article
Neuromorphic Computing Chips Make Transistors Feel Obsolete Intel’s upcoming platform for neuromorphic computing, the Loihi neuromorphic processor, reflects a broader trend in the AI hardware community, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the packaging. The Loihi processor packs major changes to the underlying transistor architecture and uses a unique signaling method used for computation. Intel’s products and other chips from hardware startups are starting to resemble the functionality in the human Read Article
PCB Routing Rules for Single-Ended and Differential Signals Different signalling standards require different PCB routing rules. Here’s how to find and set the PCB routing rules you need in your PCB design software. Read Article
How Load Capacitance on a Transmission Line Affects Your Signals If you ever read about transmission lines and integrated circuit datasheets, there is this seemingly mysterious quantity called load capacitance. This value depends on the geometry of the component lead connected to the transmission line, as well as the substrate material and distance to the reference plane on the integrated circuit die. When working with transmission lines, the load capacitance of a component has some important effects on signal Read Article
USB 4 Design: Ultra-fast Serial Data Transfer for Your PCB USB 4 will bring ultra-fast serial data transfer to your PCB. Here’s what you need to know about USB 4 design for your PCB. Read Article
MIMO Antenna Design and PCB Layout Tips Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has become a more popular term now that 5G is becoming more publicized, but this term and the technology have been around for awhile. MIMO can be traced all the way back to research papers from the 1970s, and significant development was required before the technology could be commercialized. Recently, the drastic increase in wireless services direct to consumers and in offices has been enabled by MIMO. If you Read Article
Everything You Need to Know About Oscillators Mark Harris gives an in depth overview of the major categories of Oscillators. He explains the different types with their functions and drawbacks. Read more here. Read Article
Microwave Cavity Resonator Emissions in Your PCB Layout Even digital designers need to worry about cavity resonant emission in PCBs. Here’s how your circuit board can act like a microwave cavity resonator. Read Article
Designing for V2X Communication: Wireless Protocols and Standards Take your vehicle’s connectivity to the next level with V2X communication standards. Designing these systems may be easier than you think. Read Article
Bob Smith Termination: Is it Correct for Ethernet? Common-mode chokes in Ethernet circuits use Bob Smith termination, but is it the right choice for sinking common-mode noise? Read Article
Top 4 Time Wasters in PCB Design Collaboration PCB design collaboration doesn’t have to be difficult when you use the right project management and communication tools. Read Article
DOE Releases Roadmap for Quantum Networking and Quantum Internet Now with quantum computing going mainstream, quantum networking is on the horizon. Here’s how this differs from classical networking. Read Article
Temperature Sensor Project: Digital Temperature Sensor ICs The final article in this series looks at digital temperature sensors pitting all the sensors we’ve tested against each other in a head to head contest over a wide range of environmental conditions to allow for a comparison of their functionality, accuracy, and behavior. Read Article
How to Involve Customers in PCB Product Development If you’re a freelancer and you’ve led or managed a complex PCB design project, the need to involve your customer in the product development process may not be obvious. Your customer is probably a project manager at a bigger company, so they’ll be overseeing progress on the project and leading communication with you. If you work on a small team or as part of a large organization, involving customers in product development can be time-consuming Read Article
Transmission Line Transfer Function from ABCD and S-parameters High frequency and data rate channels can be routed as a mode-selective transmission line. Here’s when you should consider this routing technique. Read Article