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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What Solder Mask Expansion Value Should You Use? The solder stop mask layer caps off the PCB and provides a protective film over copper on the surface layers. Solder mask needs to be pulled back from landing pads on the surface layer so that you have a surface where components can be mounted and soldered. This removal of the solder mask from a pad on the top layer should extend some distance around the edge of the pad, creating either NSMD or SMD pads for your components. How far back should Read Article

Routing Fundamentals & Techniques When you’re ready to start using a new design tool, you just want to dive in and get going. With Watch Video

PCB Transmission Line Impedance Calculators We’ve compiled a set of transmission line impedance calculators for use in high speed PCB design and RF design. Read Article

Electronics Supply Chain Sentiment Indicates a Gloomy 18 Months The electronics supply chain is seeing record investment, yet engineers are still projecting longer lead times and higher prices for components. Read Article

Get the latest on the Altium Designer 22 release and more! February 18, 2022 ONTRACK BI-WEEKLY The newest release of Altium Designer brings users new supply chain insights, DFM features, and additional simulation features in SPICE. The biggest enhancements in this newest release include: Simulation The SPICE simulation package in Altium Designer now includes Monte Carlo. Results can be displayed in an easy-to-read histogram for sensitivity analysis. Assembly Solder paste settings have been improved to Read Article

Ebook: Routing High-Density Interconnects with Reliable Microvias Routing high density PCBs is heavily rules driven and it requires understanding what contributes to microvia reliability. Download PDF

How to Reduce Parasitic Capacitance in a PCB Layout Learn how to reduce parasitic capacitance so you can prevent high-frequency noise coupling in your PCB layout. Read Article

Harness mmWave Routing with a Mode-Selective Transmission Line High frequency and data rate channels can be routed as a mode-selective transmission line. Here’s when you should consider this routing technique. Read Article

US Government Calls for Revitalizing American PCB Manufacturing Unless you’ve been designing while living under a rock, you’ve noticed how hard it has become to find reliable sources of semiconductors. While companies deal with the fallout from massive consumer demand by implementing just-in-case sourcing strategies, the semiconductor industry is responding with new investment in semiconductor fabs. While some companies like United Microelectronics are investing billions in additional capacity overseas, Intel Read Article

PCB Motor Robots Creation with Carl Bugeja Carl Bugeja, a well-known Youtube Creator, talks about his experience designing electronics and his fascination with inventing new things. Watch now or listen on the go. Carl will also share some exciting robotics projects he is currently working on. Read Article

Thermal Management in PCB Today Clearing up the confusion about the IPC 2152 with Mike Jouppi, the “Thermal Man''. Watch this episode and be enlightened about thermal management on PCB, which will be very useful to apply to your next PCB design project. Read Article

How Project Templates can Improve Your Design Flow With each use of Altium Designer, each of us develops a certain approach to creating and working with our PCB Watch Video

Parasitic Extraction with an Electromagnetic Solver in PCB Routing Parasitic extraction: the integrated circuit design community must grapple with this task on a daily basis, especially once gate features are reduced below ~350 nm and chips run at high switching speeds. The PCB community also has to deal with this idea in order to better design power delivery networks, interconnects with precise impedance, and properly quantify crosstalk and coupling mechanisms. There are many 3rd party applications that can be Read Article

Part 4: Creating Fabrication and Assembly Drawings In Altium Designer Draftsman is a sophisticated yet easy to use drawing tool that is integrated within Altium Designer, for the creation of fabrication and assembly drawings. Draftsman is a built-in extension that can be installed or removed manually by going to the Extensions and Updates page. You can access the Extensions and Updates page by clicking on the user icon on the top right of the Altium Designer window. If you would like to skip to different chapters Read Article

Part 3: Documenting Your PCB for Assembly Learn everything you need to know to have you board successfully assembled, including assembly drawing requirements, adding notes, and cautionary markings. Read Article

Part 2: Documenting Your Master Drawing The master drawing is the most crucial part of your PCB documentation. See how to expertly complete your master drawings to ensure your board is manufacturable. Read Article

Part 1: Setting Up Your Fabrication Document Learn everything you need to know about Documentation for Fabrication and Assembly of printed circuit boards. Read Article