Hello, Welcome to the Altium Learning Hub

Octopart, the premier data platform for electronic components, handles at least 5 million unique searches every month. In this episode, together with Daniel Schoenfelder, head of Octopart, we will dive into the importance of having reliable access to electronic part data.  We specialize in democratizing electronic component data and helping engineers, designers, and buyers make better decisions faster. - Daniel Schoenfelder, head of Octopart Li...

Design rules are there to help you design your board, but what’s there to help you design your rules? Without proper creation, design rules are useless. This makes board creation and accurate verification almost impossible. The upgraded design rule editor in Altium Designer allows you to validate your rules, checking for conflicts and usability issues. After you have a valid rule set you can begin to design and debug your board; which Altium...

Design rules are there to help you design your board, but what’s there to help you design your rules? Without proper creation, design rules are useless. This makes board creation and accurate verification almost impossible. The upgraded design rule editor in Altium Designer allows you to validate your rules, checking for conflicts and usability issues. After you have a valid rule set you can begin to design and debug your board; which Altium...

Power planes, or at least polygon pour used for power, are indispensable in modern PCBs, and it’s doubtful that digital systems as we know them would exist without the ability to split power nets into different regions. With digital boards that are nominally running at DC (possibly with some superimposed noise from a switching regulator), splitting up a power plane or using multiple power planes is a necessity for routing large currents at...

Of all the electronics application areas, there is one that needs to consider mechanical and thermal shocks during design: avionics. An avionics designed 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...

“Working to reduce risk and provide a better customer experience in electronics manufacturing.” - Chris Church Macrofab offers a better electronics manufacturing experience for the customer, from PCBA manufacturing to complete product assembly, testing, and fulfillment. Chris Church is here to explain the inspiration behind Macrofab, the solution it offers to design engineers, and the value they add to get your product out fast and efficiently....

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...

High-speed PCB layout and routing can be complex and requires many diverse considerations. Important high-speed layout techniques 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...

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...