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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.

PCB Designers for SpaceX and Beyond: Yesterday’s Fiction, Tomorrow’s Reality I’ve wanted a career in engineering for as long as I can remember. There were people who could MacGyver something out of nothing and I wanted to be one of those people. I’m sure that watching science fiction on TV added a lot to that. I mean, who wouldn’t want to manipulate technology and control immense power like “Scotty” on Star Trek? I found out that I’m not alone in those dreams—apparently, Scotty was the inspiration for much interest in Read Article
How to Create a Bill of Materials That Meets Your Needs Sometimes when pressed to answer a question that I’m not prepared for like, “what do you want for your birthday”, I’ll respond flippantly; “small stacks of hundreds please!” I don’t even remember where I got this quote from, but I tend to use it a lot. It often kills the conversation and in the case of my wife, it earns me an immediate “annoyed wife glare” in response. Wouldn’t it be nice though if just for once someone actually honored my Read Article
Circuit Board Sizes and Shapes, How to Make a PCB For many years my career took me to a lot of different locations as I traveled to conduct business. One of the wonderful things about travel is how it opens you up to new experiences and individuals. You only truly begin understanding how diverse our world is after witnessing the differences throughout various of it. I just wish I brought a dog with me on those trips, so I could name it “Toto,” because I sure wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Just as Read Article
Mastering Magnetism: Hall Effect Sensors and Applications for PCBs Thales of Miletus obviously had a magnetic personality. People noticed when Aristotle celebrated his achievements when writing his best-selling Περὶ Ψυχῆς (On The Soul). Aristotle praised Thales for reasoning that magnets have souls: “Thales, too, to judge from what is recorded about him, seems to have held soul to be a motive force, since he said that the magnet has a soul in it because it moves the iron.” The reputation of Thales spread Read Article
The Best PCB Design Tools Help You Grow From Design Kindergarten I used to work with middle-school aged kids, and one of the topics that I taught them was how to work together. I would separate them into four small groups and give each group a set of instructions on how to complete a section of a project. The intent was that after the four individual sections were completed, the kids would then come back together and use those sections to form one final project. The results though were usually pretty funny as Read Article
Remove the Chance of PCB Manufacturing Delays by Using a Final Deliverable Checklist Several years ago I had knee surgery. Something had happened to the membrane that provided protection in the joint, and my knee was making all kinds of noise that a healthy knee shouldn’t be making. Before going into the surgery the doctor said that I should take a marker and carefully notate which knee required the surgery. Considering the circumstances, I hope he wasn’t pulling my leg before cutting into it. Using a checklist is always a good Read Article
Putting Constraints to Work for You in Your Circuit Routing Software When I was a kid, my parents had a 1955 Oldsmobile Super 88 Holiday. What a great car. As an eight year old though, the main thing that stood out to me was that it had a decorative rope that stretched horizontally across the back of the front seat. Sitting in the back with my brother one day, we informed our parents that with the fancy rope in place we no longer needed to use our seat belts. I saw my dad wink to my mom, and then at a very slow Read Article
Designing Your PDN to Work Within Your PCB Layout Guidelines I enjoy watching the occasional episode of Star Trek here and there, and I get a kick out of noting the inconsistencies in their technology. In one episode they may be firing all of their energy weapons at the bad guys, moving at warp 3-billion to time travel and showing no regard as to where their power was coming from. In the next episode though, someone will plug in a space toaster to warm up their breakfast in the galley, and the whole ship Read Article
Efficient Heat Dissipation with SMD Heat Sinks Keeps You From Dropping PCBs Surely nothing could go wrong with making a simple dinner like heating an instant pizza in the oven. As hunger get the best of me, I forgot to put on the baking gloves and tried to remove the scalding tray. In an instant, the pain registered and rushed to place my finger under the rushing cold water from the tap. The singe mark on my finger lasted for a few weeks after, but the warning will stay with me until the next time I get too hungry. In Read Article
BOM System Improvements In the past, many PCB designers were confined to tools that dictated when the Bill of Materials could be produced. But we know from years of experience that the Bill of Materials, or BOM, can change throughout the design process. We believe the decision should be up to you, which is why we strive to offer tools that embrace flexible and agile options for PCB designers and other professionals involved in the decision process. Click the PDF above Download PDF
Guidelines for PCB Design PCB Design is a complex field and every step you take to design and develop a board has its own set of best practices to help you determine the best solutions for your pending puzzle. Read on for more information about guidelines from across the spectrum of PCB design disciplines. We hope these PCB design guidelines will help you in your next project. Click the PDF above to read more about Guidelines for PCB Design in this presentation. Or read Download PDF
Collaborative Design PCB Design is a complex field and every step you take to design and develop a board has its own set of best practices. But what will truly move the needle in your design process? Collaborative tools that keep your team not only focused but in the flow. Altium has pioneered collaborative design for EDA tools because Altium PCB design tools start each iteration with ultimate productivity in mind. Join us in an exploration of collaborative PCB Download PDF
Through It All: PCB Tools and What Experience Has Shown I have always been aware that places exist in the world where the January gray skies and chills never happen, but I’m still not entirely sure where they are. Whether it’s picking up a new hobby, being invigorated by your resolutions, or rewatching some of your favorite movies under a heavy, comfortable blanket, January has a lot more to offer than the cold, wet, and gloomy weather that is on the other side of most of our windows. As the doorstep Read Article
Optimizing Your BOM for Rapid Prototype Manufacturing With how interconnected the world is, I’m still in awe of all the people knowing and learning multiple languages. Luckily as an engineer, we all are able to speak a common language when it comes to any engineering subject: numbers. No matter where you live zero is zero, pi is pi, and 2+2 will always equal, hold on let me grab my calculator, 4. In our current design and manufacturing ecosystem, we are often tasked with working with manufacturers Read Article
See Where You are Going with Your PCB Power Distribution Network Design For those of you who have only experienced the brilliant high power of LED, Xenon, or Halogen headlights in today’s modern cars, you may not realize how fortunate you are. My first car was old enough that its headlights could have been candles. One year I received Halogen fog lights for my birthday, and the difference at night was amazing. Not only could I now see what was next to the car in the dark but the fog lights almost out-distanced the Read Article
Manage Embedded Software through Design Rules for a No-Line PCB Design Recently, Amazon opened its first grocery market where one of its main points was its refusal of lines. Of course, its first-day publicity was a line of people outside waiting to try it out. I’m sure that as the newness diminishes it will be able to fulfill its promise of no lines; however, for now, I am mostly hoping that the store still had some rules in place in-case there was a line. After all, if one of your basic premises is to avoid lines Read Article
Help Your PCB Design Process with CAD Tools that are Designed to Work Together I’ve never quite understood how in all of our technological developments as humans, we haven’t yet developed a better grounding for playgrounds. When I was still small enough to swing, instead of sinking the whole swingset, I remember being so frustrated that our playground had rocks and mulch for us to run around on. That has always seemed a bit counterintuitive to me; designate an area as a play area for children but line it with hard or Read Article