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The most powerful, modern and easy-to-use PCB design tool for professional use

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Leveraging Component Data to Build Better Design’s Faster In the business of robust electronics design, it’s not enough to build something that works, or even something that works well. Working phenomenally is the bare minimum in a competitive landscape. A robust design at a holistic level is one that is made of the correct components for the application, all of which are readily available with alternates, that is price optimized and sourceable from multiple suppliers. That’s a tall order for a design Read Article

Simberian’s 3D Field Solver in Altium Designer Simberian makes a physics-based 3D field solver tool that helps measure not only the traces on your board but also the materials. Altium recently entered into a formal partnership with Simberian, and Roger Paje - VP of Global Marketing, discusses with us how this impacted Altium Designer® 19 and 20, and what’s we’ll see going into Altium Designer 21 and beyond. Listen to the Podcast: Download this episode (right click and save) Watch the video Read Article

Webinar on XR | Think AR on Steroids Making the business case for XR (Image source: XR Intelligence) Do you remember when the internet first reached the popular consciousness with the release of the MOSAIC web browser circa 1993? A couple of years later, even though almost everyone was aware of the internet by that time, many companies -- including large, multibillion-dollar concerns -- were still debating internally whether it was worth spending their time and resources on having Read Article

8-Bit Micros are Alive and Kicking The NUCLEO-8S207K8 board boasts a 32-pin STM8S207K8 MCU (Image source: STMicroelectronics) I just heard from the guys and gals at STMicroelectronics (ST) that they are "making design starts using 8-bit STM8 microcontrollers (MCUs) faster, more affordable, and more accessible for creative minds of all types by introducing new development boards in the easy-to-use Nucleo-32 form factor." We will return to consider these little rascals in a moment Read Article

Rigid-Flex PCBs in IoT Devices: ECAD and MCAD Collaboration At a recent PCB manufacturer’s trade show, multiple fabricators informed me they are seeing many more requests for flex and rigid-flex PCBs recently, particularly for smart wearables and small embedded/IoT products. The advantages of flex and rigid-flex PCBs include more efficient use of space in an enclosure, and the ability to adapt to foldable devices. Whether you need a static or dynamic flex/rigid-flex PCB, you’ll need to verify a number of Read Article

EMI from Heatsinks and What You Can Do About It Selecting the right heatsink can help you keep your system cool and prevent EMI. While it may not be obvious, or while most designers may not think to check, heatsinks can generate EMI when they are connected to a switching element. This is a common problem in power supply design, and whenever a heatsink is placed in contact with a component that switches with high current draw at high frequency. Reducing EMI from heatsinks requires balancing the Read Article

Some Techniques for Suppressing DC-DC Converter EMI in IoT Products This Li ion battery is most likely connected to a switching regulator to provide stable power. Suppressing EMI susceptibility in IoT devices from various sources is critical to ensuring your new product will work as designed. Similarly, your IoT product should limit spurious emissions if you want it to comply with EMC regulations. Among the various sources of radiated EMI from your next product, EMI within the device itself should also be Read Article

Load Line Analysis for Nonlinear Circuits in Altium Designer Before creating a layout for your nonlinear circuits, you should run a load line analysis so it doesn't end up like this If you’re in the business of analog circuit design, then you’ll likely need to run simulations of your system to determine its functionality. Linear systems are rather intuitive, even in the case where strong feedback becomes an important determinant of stability. With nonlinear circuits, this can get more complicated, and it’s Read Article

A Retro-Computing Christmas Sinclair 48K ZX Spectrum computer (1982) (Image source: Bill Bertram/Wikipedia) It's starting to look a lot like (a retro-computing) Christmas. I understand why many younger readers cannot imagine a world before today's incredibly powerful computing and gaming systems with their high-resolution graphics subsystems. We all enjoy these systems, but those of us who are more... let's say "seasoned"… remember the raw excitement we felt just to own any Read Article

30:28 Altium Designer 20 Meet The Next Generation Of Easy, Modern, And Powerful It’s time to meet the next generation of Easy, Modern, and Powerful PCB design. Join us during this live webinar Watch Video

Splitting Planes—The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Splitting planes or making plane cuts is another one of those technical issues wherein there is a lot of conflicting information. Some say it’s a good thing to split planes; others say you can make plane cuts in both ground and power planes, some say you make cuts only in power planes, and others say to avoid plane cuts altogether. This article will debunk the myths surrounding split planes, provide evidence as to when they are useful, and Read Article

Patrick Züger Talks About the Altium Designer 20 New and Exciting Features Patrick Züger from GPV Switzerland, a massive fabricator and assembly facility across Europe and China, delivered a great talk at AltiumLive in Europe. He shares his feedback and design process with and as an Altium Designer® Beta User. We discuss his initial impressions of Altium Designer 20. Listen to the Podcast: Download this episode (right click and save) Watch the video: Show Highlights: As a CID+ Hardware/PCB designer in a global EMS Read Article

Non-functional pads—what are they and what problems can they create? In previous articles on my blog, I have stated that non-functional pads should always be removed from PCB artwork, but I have not gone into detail as to why this should be the case. In the industry at large, there is some confusion about these pads and whether or not they serve a useful purpose. In this article, I will define what they are, how their use originated, the problems they can create and why they should be removed from PCB artwork Read Article

Geeky Holiday Gift Ideas The holiday season is coming! I asked both the Altium community and my Altium Library community what geek gifts they are looking for, and I’ve added some of my own for the first ever Altium Geek Gift Guide! This is mostly for electronics geeks, but there should be something for everyone! There are so many amazing geek gifts out there it would be impossible to cover them all, so I’ve tried to keep to community suggestions. I then added just a few Read Article

Plated Through-Hole Vias in mmWave PCBs Should you plate your through-hole vias in mmWave PCBs? Recently, I received a question from a designer at a startup wondering about proper use of plated through-hole vias in mmWave PCBs. It got me thinking that I neglected to mention this point in a previous blog post, although space in these posts can be limited. This is a fair question, both when dealing with microwave/mmWave frequencies, and when working with high speed digital signals. At Read Article

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Calculating your Fabrication Capability Coefficients People have long asked me, “How do you know if a fabricator is capable of manufacturing my boards?” First, I tell them to ask for an IPC PCQR2 Report. If that is not available and there is no time or money to go through the process, then calculating the Fabrication Capability Coefficient is a good ‘second-best’. Fabrication Yields The Fabrication Capability Coefficient (FCC) is computed from a fabricator’s electrical test data, their First Pass Read Article