Hello, Welcome to the Altium Learning Hub

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...

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...

Altium Concord Pro™ as a standalone product and brand name has been discontinued and the capabilities are now available as part of our Altium enterprise solutions. Learn more here.  PCB designers and project managers in highly regulated industries face a number of obstacles when managing the design process and preparing for manufacturing. Aside from paying attention to industry standards, and performance requirements, and coordinating electrical...

Most people that have read anything about Albert Einstein have heard the word “causality” thrown around. Although causality is often talked about in terms of relativity and quantum mechanics, this idea is central in any dynamical system. PCB interconnects are causal systems, and accurately modeling a PCB interconnect requires considering specific aspects of signal behavior and the system’s response. If you can correctly model the causal behavior...

IoT products are lovely and sometimes frustrating products. Design teams need to be multifunctional to design these products successfully. They need to get the hardware, embedded software, web platform and/or app, and mechanical enclosure perfect if they want to see market success. Problems in any of these areas mean your new product will be substandard and, eventually, competitive products will win market share. So what does it take to ensure...

It feels like everyone is writing an article these days about how they’re managing (or not managing) with stay-at-home orders due to COVID-19 restrictions. At the time of writing, California (where I am based) has the highest number of cases over any other state in the United States. To combat the pandemic, most non-essential businesses have been closed or open in a limited fashion. This means that folks who are able to work from home (e.g...

Are you considering a switch from your current tool? Do you want to discover how to use Altium Designer’s powerful key features more effectively? Watch the on-demand webinar to see how switching to Altium Designer is easy and can save your company time and money. If you are interested in experiencing the world's finest PCB design product for yourself, request your free trial today and see why more Engineers and Designers choose Altium Designer...

PCB fabricators can be as diverse as the products they manufacture. You can find anything from a company based in Asia that focuses on volume production of complex multi-layer boards for the main players in the telecom and datacom market sectors. A manufacturer based primarily here in the States is something rare, especially one that offers a broad range of expertise, products, and services for a wide variety of end applications. While similar in...

The terms “high-speed design” and “low-Dk PCB laminate” are often used in the same articles, and often in the same sentence. Low-Dk PCB materials have their place in high speed and high-frequency PCBs, but high-Dk PCB materials provide power integrity. Low-Dk PCBs are typically chosen as they tend to have lower loss tangent. Thus high-DK PCB materials tend to get overlooked for high speed and high-frequency PCBs. When we look at power integrity...