PCB Design Resources and Information

Explore Altium's Resource hub to discover content from blog posts and design guides to technical white papers, all gathered together for your convenience and written by Altium's community of PCB design experts.

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All About IPC-4101 and IPC-4103 Slash Sheets PCB laminate material requirements are outlined in slash sheets as specified in the IPC-4101 standard. Read our guide to learn about this standard and how materials are specified. Read Article

Troubleshooting EMC from Your Workbench EMC expert Ken Wyatt joins us in this episode to answer frequently asked EMC questions—a sneak peak to his EMC Book Series. Read Article

Leveraging the Free Footprint Community to Design at Lightning Speed In this article, we reviewed a few different offerings of free footprint library resources for Altium Designer. We also briefly covered how to migrate those libraries to your Altium 365. Read Article

Configuring a Hardware in the Loop Project This article will walk through an example project of a board designed in Altium Designer and run through a DevOps flow using hardware in the loop testing against its firmware. Read Article

Designing 5G PCB Devices The next stage in the evolution of mobile telephony is here with the roll-out of 5G. The designer looking to incorporate functionality to handle 5G signals into their circuits will face some challenging issues. So, what’s so special about 5G. The main change in the jump from 4G to 5G is the frequency band at which signals are transmitted. For 4G, this band covered 0.7 GHz up to 2.5 GHz. For 5G, this new band is an order of magnitude larger, with Read Article

The Digital Engineer's Guide to RF PCB Design Guidelines: Layout and Routing Read our guide to learn some of the best RF PCB design guidelines for layout and routing. We’ll also look at how simulation tools can help you evaluate your RF PCB layout. Read Article

Continuous Conduction Mode in an SMPS: What is it and Why it Matters Learn more about continuous conduction mode and how to design to this condition in your power supply. The best design and simulation tools can help you verify continuous conduction mode is reached. Read Article

Serial Communications Protocols - RS-485

Serial Communications Protocols - Part Four: RS-485 and Baud Rates In Part 4 of a series of articles about some of the popular Serial Communication Protocols, we explore the popular RS-485 protocol standard. Read Article

Parameterized Tests Using Pytest for Hardware in the Loop Testing In Configuring a Hardware in the Loop Project, we reviewed the hardware concept in the loop testing using the Pytest framework. In that article, we examined the high-level concepts needed to create a basic test framework and structure. In this article, we will be reviewing the Pytest framework in-depth, specifically parameterized tests. At the end of this article, the reader will understand the difference between individual tests and Read Article

ECAD-MCAD Collaboration for Improved Product Development Working between the Electronic and Mechanical design domains brings unique challenges. ECAD and MCAD tools have different design objectives and Watch Video

Linear Voltage Regulator vs switching regulator

Using LDOs vs Switching Regulators in Your PCB Designing a low power device? Learn more about the tradeoffs between LDOs vs switching regulators in this article. Read Article

All About Your PCB Trace Length: How Long is Too Long? Learn more about PCB trace length and how transmission line losses mount in your designs. Read Article

Pro Tips on Adopting to a New Design System

How to Build a New Data Management System Listen to the Podcast: Download this episode (right click and save) Watch the video: Show Highlight - Pro Tips! How do you build a new data management system? Build templates and defaults (files) and remember to always do this FIRST - copy the Altium defaults and set them up from there. Please review all the parameters and learn how they flow. Then check in to Concord / Altium365. Review and organize your categorization system. Make templates Read Article

Switching Power Supply Output Filter: Design and Simulation SPICE packages can help you design a switching power supply output filter bby looking at transient response results and running parameter sweeps. Read Article

PCB Sharing and What Data You Can Share in Altium 365 Open up your design data files with your team using the PCB sharing features in Altium 365. Read Article

SUBCKT Sharing: The Fastest Ways to Share SPICE Models Online SPICE simulation files shouldn’t be difficult to find. Use Altium 365 to store, track, and access your SUBCKT files for sharing. Read Article

PCB Ground Plane Best Practices in Your Multilayer Stackup Learn all about proper use of a PCB ground plane and grounded copper pour in your design. You’ll ensure signal integrity and low EMI with correct PCB ground plane placement. Read Article