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.

Best Design Practices for Double-Sided PCB Soldering with SMD Parts Read our guidelines for designers who want to ensure successful double-sided PCB soldering. Read Article

Decoupling Capacitor Optimization for Power Integrity Decoupling capacitor optimization is more than a buzzword, it’s all about selecting the right set of capacitors to keep power stable in your PDN. Read Article

New Altium Subscription Plans: Fit, Flow and Flexibility In this interview, Altium Chief of Staff and Head of Investor Relations, Kim Besharati discusses the new Multi-Level Subscription Plan that was rolled out earlier this month. By providing unprecedented flexibility, choice and a ground-breaking way for design engineers to collaborate with the entire supply chain, this new subscription plan is poised to fundamentally improve the way electronic products are realized around the world. Judy Warner Read Article

Temperature Sensor Project: Analog Temperature Sensor ICs Learn more about the fourth class of temperature sensors in a series of articles that are all about measuring temperature. Discover their advantages and disadvantages as well as common topologies for their implementation. Read Article

Raspberry Pi Enters the World of Microcontrollers Learn more about the new Raspberry Pi microcontroller, its specifications, and ideal applications. Read Article

Underwater ROV Design and Component Selection Underwater ROVs need to obey the same reliability standards as other high-performance, high uptime products like aerospace and military systems. High reliability is all about component selection and designing boards that are fully manufacturable while keeping a system safe. The DFM features, supply chain tools, and design verification engine in Altium Designer give underwater ROV builders a complete package for electronics design and fabrication Read Article

Model Your PCB Supports with MCAD Integration in Altium Designer You can place mechanical elements like PCB supports and mounts with the complete set of MCAD features in Altium Designer. Read Article

Take Control of Your PCB Supply Chain with Altium Designer If only circuit board manufacturing were simple, designers could always simply send out their designs without worrying about component stocks. Unfortunately, the realities of the PCB supply chain can derail any planned circuit board fabrication and assembly run. Component stocks can get depleted, critical parts can go obsolete, and prices can suddenly change before a design hits the PCB assembly line. What can designers do to prevent these Read Article

Use ECAD/MCAD Co-design for Your PCB Enclosure and Board Layout Printed circuit boards are fun to design and lay out, but a PCB will need an enclosure to hold it mechanically stable. PCB enclosures can be purchased off-the-shelf or they can be custom-designed in MCAD tools. No matter which route you take to create your enclosure, you’ll need to import your PCB layout into MCAD tools to ensure your board and components will not interfere with the enclosure. When you’re working with a complex layout, multiboard Read Article

How to Prepare Your Project for PCB Cart Manufacturing with Altium Designer The electronics industry is massive and there are plenty of PCB manufacturers to choose from for your next order. When you need to prepare your next board for fabrication and assembly, how can you quickly generate deliverables for manufacturers like PCB Cart? Instead of generating all manufacturing documentation manually, designers need an easy way to create deliverables for fabrication and assembly. If you plan to work with PCB Cart to produce Read Article

The Best High Voltage PCB Design Software Package Of all the different boards a designer can create, a high voltage PCB design can be complicated and requires strict attention to safety. If not laid out correctly these boards can be safety hazards or can fail to function on first power up, leaving a designer with wasted time and effort. In the best case, the board will function reliably for a long period of time thanks to correct layout practices. When you’re planning your next high voltage PCB Read Article

Upgrade from AutoCAD PCB to Altium Designer's Unified Environment Most designers are familiar with AutoCAD for mechanical or construction drafting, and for making important engineering diagrams. Although AutoCAD is great for many tasks involved in electrical or mechanical engineering, PCB designers need more than mechanical drafting tools to make advanced electronics. To get your designs to the next level, you need the best set of ECAD tools on the market, rather than using the AutoCAD PCB package. If you’re Read Article

Use a PCB Gerber Viewer to Inspect Your Fab Files in Altium 365 A PCB Gerber viewer can help you inspect your board as you prepare for manufacturing. Use the features in Altium 365 to compare and share your Gerber files. Read Article

How to Calculate PCB Power Plane Current Capacity Do you know how much current your power plane can accommodate? Learn more about PCB power plane current capacity in this article. Read Article

Decoding Media Independent Interface (MII) in Ethernet Links Learn about media independent interface variants for routing Ethernet links, including gigabit variants for 1 GbE and faster links. Read Article

Fostering Innovation in a Post-Covid World What’s in your soft skill toolbox? Eli Hughes is a true full-stack hardware engineer and a co-founder of Tzero Brew. He joins the OnTrack podcast to share his insights on how to foster innovation, manage upstream failure, build trust with your fellow engineers and stakeholders, and develop your soft skills—and other non-technical skills we use to communicate with each other and solve problems effectively. Listen to the Podcast: Download this Read Article

Design Your Small Circuit Board in Altium Designer Large circuit boards, small circuit boards, and anything in between might seem like they need separate sets of PCB layout features. In reality, your PCB design software shouldn’t delineate your PCB design based on size. Whether you need to design a large or small circuit board, a design application with high-quality CAD tools will help you get the job done quickly and prepare your board for production. Small circuit board designs are much easier Read Article