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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 Relay Selection, Design, and Layout are Easy in Altium Designer PCB Relay Selection, Design, and Layout are Easy in Altium Designer Circuit protection is vital for user safety and for protecting a board from electrical damage. Whether you’re working with a small, moderate power PCB or a large, high voltage electromechanical system, power surges or faults can destroy components and create hazards for users. The best way to ensure your next device remains safe from high voltage ESD or large current surges is to use a simple PCB relay. Compared to large relays that need to be Read Article
Spot Copper Connection Errors in Design Rule Checks Instantly Check Every Copper Connection With Rules-Driven PCB Design Tools It’s easy to find errors in most simple PCBs. Simply scan through your critical nets and trace each copper connection from source to load. Today’s printed circuit boards are not so easy to inspect and validate by eye. Even relatively simple low-speed boards can have hundreds of components packed into a small space, and it’s easy to get lost in a complex PCB layout. Today’s modern designs demand modern design tools. Altium Designer users have Read Article
Design RF PCBs With a Coplanar Waveguide Calculator Design RF PCBs With a Coplanar Waveguide Calculator RF PCBs can be complex boards that need careful interconnect design and layout. If you’re designing an RF PCB for microwave or higher frequencies, controlled impedance routing should be top of mind to ensure signal integrity. You can choose from many routing styles, but whichever routing style you choose, it should provide isolation against noise and crosstalk. A coplanar waveguide routing style is an excellent choice for RF PCBs as they can be Read Article
Improving Your Engineering CV Improving Your Engineering CV Your CV could be costing you your dream job. Mark Harris give his expert advice on how you can make sure that your CV will not be ignored by a non-technical recruiter. Read Article
PDS Impedance: The Traditional Approach To PDS Design vs. Energy Flow PDS Impedance: The Traditional Approach To PDS Design vs. Energy Flow Take a look at traditional PDS impedance versus the “energy flow” view of PDS design. We’ll debunk misleading information that could cause your designs to fail. Read Article
Build Your Next LED PCB Design in Altium's Unified Environment Build Your Next LED PCB Design in Altium's Unified Environment LED driver boards can be challenging designs when running at high power and high voltage. Power systems for driving devices like LED panels need careful planning and layout for power supply sections, and the LED PCB itself needs to be laid out to ensure low-temperature operation. These objectives can be difficult to balance without the best set of PCB layout features and DC analysis tools. When you need to create a high-power LED PCB design Read Article
Preparing Your Circuit Board for a PCB Etching Service There are times where you don’t need to produce a finalized, silk-screened board at high volume, and you may only need to use a blank PCB with no components or silkscreen. Blank PCBs can be useful for prototyping, breadboarding, experimenting with components, and accessing external traces. These boards do not need to go through a special production process, they only need a limited documentation package to begin fabrication. ALTIUM DESIGNER® The Read Article
Transition from Hobby PCB Maker to Professional Designer with Altium Transition from Hobby PCB Maker to Professional Designer with Altium Most new designers start off with freeware when they need to create their first PCB designs, but free PCB design software lacks many features required to create real circuit boards. Hobby PCB designers and makers need a range of tools to create high-quality circuit boards and eventually create real devices. Instead of using free PCB layout software and other programs to help get designs into production, hobby PCB makers need professional design Read Article
Model Train Circuits in the Best Electronics Design Software Model Train Circuits in the Best Electronics Design Software Model train circuits include multiple elements that hobbyists might find in other common electronics. LEDs, buzzers, alarms, motors, and much more can be found in model train circuits. Designing train circuit boards takes a great schematic editor and component library with real and generic components for use in a circuit board. Use the best circuit board design software to create your model train circuits and start your PCB layout in a single Read Article
OpenRAN All About ORANs: A PCB Designer's Guide to Open Radio Access Networks Open radio access networks, or ORANs, are a new paradigm in telecom architecture that will enable future 5G and 6G network architectures. Read Article
Double-sided PCB soldering 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 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
Temperature Sensor Project: Analog Temperature Sensor ICs 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 microcontroller 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 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
Extreme ECAD/MCAD Integration in Altium Designer 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
pcb supply chain Take Control of Your PCB Supply Chain with Altium Designer and Altium 365 Circuit board manufacturing should be simple, but today's supply chain challenges can delay or derail any design that gets sent in for PCB fabrication and assembly. Today's major challenges in the PCB supply chain include trouble sourcing parts, logistics challenges when managing multiple suppliers, delays in production and delivery, and high costs when stocks get low. Many design teams still make the mistake of waiting until the end of a design Read Article