PCB Design Resources and Information | Altium

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

The Advantages of ABCD Parameters for Analyzing Your PCB SI (Signal integrity) engineers always talk about S-parameters, but an alternative tool for circuit design and analysis is ABCD parameters. Read Article

Back Drilling in Altium Designer: One of the Easiest Ways to Improve Signal Integrity Back Drilling in Altium Designer is one of the Easiest Ways to Improve Signal Integrity. Click to see a Backdrilling example. Download PDF

Harness mmWave Routing with a Mode-Selective Transmission Line 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

How to Setup HDI PCB Layout and Routing in Your PCB Design Software HDI PCB layout and routing seems more complicated than it really is. Here’s how you can get started with HDI layout and routing in Altium Designer. Read Article

Stripline vs. Microstrip Width for Desired Impedance: Are They the Same? Stripline vs. microstrip width values are quite different; they can’t simply be interchanged. Let’s break down why and what you can expect from your PCBs. Read Article

What's the Difference Between Data Rate and Bandwidth? The difference between data rate and bandwidth has been obfuscated for the last 30 years. Here’s how they relate. Read Article

What Goes into PCIe 5.0 Layout and Routing? Here are some PCIe 5.0 layout and routing guidelines for your next high speed add-in card and motherboard to support PCIe 5.0 devices. Read Article

Signal Integrity for Mesh Ground Planes in Flex PCBs Even flex PCBs need a ground plane. Mesh ground planes can provide a 0 V reference in your PCB, but they have particular signal integrity requirements. Read Article

Differential Pairs Without Ground: Is it a Problem? Some designers tell you that differential pairs without ground are acceptable. So who’s correct? We’ll examine the pros and cons of a differential pair ground plane. Read Article

Best Practices in Hardware Version Control Systems Read more about some best practices for using hardware version control systems in electronics design. Read Article

The Importance of PCB Documentation When it comes to real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. When it comes to ensuring a PCB will be built as designed, the emphasis is on documentation, documentation, documentation. This article describes the documents that need to be provided by the board design group to the fabricator, assembler, and test organization. Included is the description of the different drawings needed along with files and notes. All of these documents Read Article

Through Thick And Thin — How Do You Get High Current Into a High Speed PCB? The typical large currents in today’s high speed PCB designs require a different approach. This article will describe the stackup requirements associated with these very large current PCBs and how to design them so that they can be readily manufactured properly. Read Article

How Vias Can Affect Very High-speed Signals In a variety of articles posted on Altium’s resource center as well as in several other technical articles, papers, and conference proceedings, the advantages of differential signaling and its ability to deliver very high data rates have been touted. But, as with many things in life, those things that are beneficial can also have a downside. Such is the case with today’s products that deliver 32 Gbps and above data rates and the vias that are Read Article

A Short Tour Through The PCB Design Process In several previous articles, I have addressed the PCB design process in terms of the tools involved, the basics of electromagnetic behavior on transmission lines, signal integrity, power delivery design and numerous other PCB design-related topics. But, one of the most important basics is to have a good sense of the factors that are considered to have the fastest design flow. This info spans the buses and types of signals including operating Read Article

Bandwidth Requirements For Differential Signals This article provides an overview of the benefits of differential signaling and how it operates in a working electronic product. Read Article

The Switching Behavior Of A Series-Terminated Transmission Line Series-terminated lines and differential signals serve as the links in all CMOS devices. While I have written extensively on differential signaling, its operations and its benefits, I have not addressed the switching behavior of a series-terminated line. That is the purpose of this article. The Basics The salient points about a series-terminated transmission line include the following: In this type of transmission line, a series termination is Read Article

Developing a PCB Testing Procedure for New Designs As noted in several of my previous articles, at Speeding Edge, we are big proponents of putting test structures into PCBs. The impetus for incorporating these structures covers a wide variety of topics—it’s a new design; you’re using new component technology; a new laminate or a new fabricator to name a few. There are many critical performance characteristics required of today’s electronic products. They operate at high frequencies, move enormous Read Article