Mobile menu
Home

Explore content from blog posts to technical white papers gathered together for your convenience. All written by Altium's community of PCB design experts.

High-Speed Signal Routing: The 5 Important Constraints High-Speed Signal Routing: The 5 Important Constraints Your modern digital board is most likely classified as high speed, regardless of whether you looked at the datasheets for your components. Designing your board successfully will take some important steps when you begin your design. Aside from floorplanning and stackup design, your routing strategy will need to operate within some important constraints. After you capture your schematic as an initial layout and create an initial component Read Article
Debugging Power Supply Noise to Reduce Signal and Clock Jitter Debugging Power Supply Noise to Reduce Signal and Clock Jitter Low level components need ultra-stable power, and high speed digital signals need to have repeatable edge transition times. The two aspects of digital signalling are related, and you’ll need to suppress all aspects of power supply noise to reduce jitter in a digital system. During a design debug, you’ll need to gather measurements throughout your board if you want to isolate and eliminate sources of power supply noise. Here’s how you can isolate Read Article
Phase noise measurement with spectrum analyzers How to Take a Phase Noise Measurement for High Speed Signals There are plenty of noise sources in your PCB, and phase noise can be one of those sources that is difficult to pin down in a real board. If you’re debugging a high speed board with high BER, then you’ll likely need to gather a phase noise measurement from the failing board section, or from your clock. Without getting too deep into the IC side of a system, phase noise may be an inherent property of the component you are using, such as the PLLs Read Article
PCB Trace and Pad Clearance: Low vs. High Voltage PCB Trace and Pad Clearance: Low vs. High Voltage High voltage/high current designs carry safety requirements which need to be met by designers. Similarly, high speed designs need to have suppressed crosstalk in order to ensure signal integrity. The key design aspects that relate to both areas are your PCB trace clearance and pad clearance values. These design choices are critical for balancing safety, noise suppression, and manufacturability. The IPC 2221 standards provide guidance for Read Article
Via current carrying capacity for PCBs PCB Via Current-Carrying Capacity: How Hot is Too Hot? One common question from designers, particularly new designers that are learning about industry standards, is current-carrying capacity of conductors in a PCB. Trace and via current-carrying capacity are legitimate design points to focus on when designing a new board that will carry high current. The goal is to keep conductor temperatures below some appropriate limit, which then helps keep components on the board cool. While the recommended Read Article
Will these amplifiers be stable during operation? Here’s what you should know about amplifier stability in your PCB. Amplifier Stability at High Frequencies and Stray Capacitance Amplifiers are one of those critical components that make modern life possible. From wireless communication to power electronics, amplifiers need to run stably and predictably for these products to work properly. Stability analysis is one of my favorite topics in physics and engineering, and it always tends to crop up in places you would least expect. One of these places is in amplifiers. Any time-dependent physical system with feedback and gain Read Article
Near-field vs. far-field radiation from a smartphone Near-field vs. Far-field EMI: What's Causing Noise Problems in My PCB? If you’re an antenna designer, then you’re likely familiar with all aspects of near-field vs. far-field radiation. Given the litany of radiated EMI problems that cause noise within and outside of an electronic device, one might suddenly realize their new product is acting like a strong antenna. To understand how EMI affects your circuits, it helps to understand exactly how near-field vs. far-field radiation from your PCB affects your ability to Read Article
ADC Sampling Rate and Layout for Mixed Signal Boards ADC Sampling Rate and Layout for Mixed Signal Boards Whenever you’re selecting an ADC, whether it is built into an MCU or as an external component, the sampling rate is a prime consideration, as it will determine how well you can reproduce a measured signal. RF applications, analog sensor boards, and other mixed-signal devices will need at least one ADC with an appropriately chosen ADC sampling rate. If you’re designing with a mixed-signal board, you’ll need to balance the required signal bandwidth Read Article
Sharing PCB Data with Manufacturers in the Cloud Sharing PCB Data with Manufacturers in the Cloud Once you’ve finished your new project and you’re ready to push it to your manufacturer, you’ll normally be stuck in an endless email chain with an engineer, or you’ll have to share cloud links with each other. Personally, I find the long email chains and long list of links overwhelming, especially when I have plenty of other tasks that require my attention. Sharing PCB data with manufacturers shouldn’t be a headache, it should be a seamless Read Article
Getting Started in Altium Designer | Changing the Rules! Getting Started in Altium Designer | Changing the Rules! The Altium Designer environment is controlled by rules, which are created using a powerful tool called the “PCB Rules and Constraints Editor”. By creating rules before component placement and routing starts, Altium can warn you or prevent you from making mistakes, depending on how your preferences are set. If rules are changed midstream, Altium’s sophisticated Design Rule Checker can highlight violations based on the revised rules, and report Read Article
Are We Poised on the Brink of a New Age? Are We Poised on the Brink of a New Age? A new material shaped like a one-dimensional DNA helix can be used to build transistors with diameters of only two nanometers. Read Article
The Moon by 2024, Mars by 2040, and Then? The Moon by 2024, Mars by 2040, and Then? It seems the chances are improving that we will one day become a true space-faring species. Read Article
Design Reliable Multiple Stack Microvias Like a Pro Design Reliable Multiple Stack Microvias Like a Pro In this podcast episode , learn how Gerry Partida and his team at Summit Interconnect made a compelling new discovery about the reliability of multiple stacked microvias. Watch it now. Read Article
Online Educational Resources for Mastering PCB Design Online Educational Resources for Mastering PCB Design Ben Jordan, “Dean of Altium Academy”, shares details about the central hub for educational resources: documentation, videos, and tips for mastering your Altium software. Read Article
The EMC Doctor is in: Ken Wyatt on EMI and PCB Health The EMC Doctor is in: Ken Wyatt on EMI and PCB Health The OnTrack Podcast welcomes Ken Wyatt (also known as ‘the EMC Doctor’). Ken is an EMC Engineer, a prolific author on EMI/EMC related topics, and an industry consultant. Read Article
Industry 4.0 artificial intelligence applications Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence, and IoT in Manufacturing When it comes to electronics, consumer devices like smartphones and Alexa tend to get all the attention. However, according to Alun Morgan at Ventec International Group, “about 23% of PCBs produced worldwide are used in electronics equipment for manufacturing applications.” The numbers only go up when you include other non-consumer categories that support manufacturing operations, such as automotive, telecom, power generation/distribution, and Read Article
Stealth aircraft and quantum radar Lane Recognition and Tracking with NVIDIA Jetson Nano Autonomous vehicles are slowly becoming an important part of the automotive industry. Many believe fully autonomous vehicles will soon be driving alongside humans, and technology companies are in a race to deploy fully autonomous vehicles. In December 2018, Waymo, the company that emerged from Google’s self-driving car project, officially started its commercial self-driving car service in the suburbs of Phoenix. Companies like May Mobility, Drive Read Article