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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 power plane mixed-signal PCB layout Overlapping Planes in Your Mixed-Signal PCB Layout Do you know which planes to overlap in your mixed-signal PCB layout? We’ll dig into these issues with overlapping planes at different potentials. Read Article
Designing for Shock Management in Avionics PCBs Designing for Shock Management in Avionics PCBs Of all the electronics application areas, there is one that needs to carefully consider mechanical and thermal shocks during design: avionics. An avionics system that is put into production within a satellite, aircraft, or spacecraft can experience strong vibration and mechanical shock during flight, and these systems need to be designed with high reliability in mind. IPC standards, MIL-PRF standards, and other standards specify some design Read Article
Macrofab: Modern EMS Solutions in North America Macrofab: Modern EMS Solutions in North America Macrofab offers a better electronics manufacturing experience for the customer. Chris Church, Founder and Chief Product Officer at MacroFab, Inc. tells us more in this OnTrack episode. Read Article
Get the Most From Your Power Supply Design Software Get the Most From Your Power Supply Design Software Power supplies can be difficult to design and layout as they require attention to safety and efficiency. Everything from isolation to thermal management needs to be considered in these systems, and designers need to have a complete set of design features to create reliable power supplies. In addition, power supplies tend to have mechanical constraints imposed by the enclosure, and these need to be considered when creating a PCB layout for a power Read Article
Guide to High Speed PCB Layout Techniques in Altium Designer Guide to High Speed PCB Layout Techniques in Altium Designer High-speed PCB layout and routing can be complex and requires many diverse considerations. Important layout and routing guidelines for your design span everything from trace widths on transmission lines to ground pour clearances, return path tracking, defined characteristic impedance, and much more. Simple design software packages simply can’t handle all of these constraints at once, leaving the circuit board designer to manually check every Read Article
Complete Guide to PCB Aging Test Methods Complete Guide to PCB Aging Test Methods A finished PCBA that will be deployed in the field should pass several tests to ensure reliability and stable operation. Industry standards specify multiple testing methodologies, performance requirements, evaluation metrics, even test fixtures that must be used to assess electrical behavior, thermal cycling resistance, long-term thermal stability, ability to withstand thermal shock, and much more. With Altium Designer, you’ll have a complete Read Article
Important Design Standards for Power Supply PCBs Design and Simulate Your Power Supply PCB With the Best ECAD Software A PCB for a power supply can be as difficult to design as high-speed networking equipment and complex embedded systems. These circuit board designs need to account for a range of behaviors and safety requirements, especially when dealing with high voltages and currents reaching the output of the power supply. In addition to safety standards involved in power supply PCBs, component selection is critical for ensuring the design can provide the Read Article
Importance of Signal Integrity for High Speed Designs in Your ECAD Software Importance of Signal Integrity for High-Speed Designs in Your ECAD Software Your PCB design software can help you create boards to ensure signal integrity in high speed designs. Learn more about how Altium can help you. Read Article
WiFi 7 802.11be Standard Get Ready for WiFi 7 under the 802.11be Standard Are you ready for WiFi 7 capabilities in your new product? Learn more about the newest iteration of WiFi and what to expect from the 802.11be standard. Read Article
SDRAM vs DDR Using SDRAM vs. DDR RAM in Your PCB Design SDRAM is a slower predecessor to DDR, but you might not need DDR for every application. Here’s how you can compare SDRAM vs DDR for your design. Read Article
pcb testing PCB Testing 101: Important Methods and Metrics PCB testing must occur during fabrication, assembly, and board bring-up. Here’s how you can plan to be successful during testing and inspection. Read Article
Rugged electronics laptop What Goes Into Rugged Electronics Design? In this article, we’ll outline some of the common design decisions that go into rugged electronics, as well as some steps you can take to create rugged PCBAs. Read Article
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. A proper structure Watch Video
Impedance balancing power supply Reduce CM Noise in Your Power Supply with Impedance Balancing You can use impedance balancing to reduce conducted common-mode noise in your power supply. Here’s how it works and some experimental results. Read Article
cloud simulation Using Altium 365 for Sharing Simulations in the Cloud Altium 365 allows you to share your cloud simulation models and data with your signal integrity team and test engineer. Read Article
Customize Your PCB Drill Sizes With Altium Designer Customize Your PCB Drill Sizes With Altium Designer Every PCB will need some holes, vias, slots, and other features that are defined in a PCB layout. These features need to be reflected in fabrication documents, and designers need tools to help them automate this process of creating documentation directly from their designs. It’s easy to keep track of your holes, vias, electrical behavior, and much more in Altium Designer, the industry’s top PCB design application for professional design engineers Read Article
Design Your Metal Core PCB in Altium Designer Design Your Metal Core PCB in Altium Designer Most printed circuit boards use a thick FR4 core layer to provide structural stability and interior copper layers for a multilayer PCB. If problems like excessive heat and low thermal dissipation are required in your particular application, you might consider designing with a metal core PCB. You’ll see other advantages like greater structural integrity, as well as a natural EMI shield thanks to the internal metal core. These circuit boards Read Article