PCB Heat Sinks: Thermal Pad vs. Paste in Your Circuit Board Design Using thermal pads vs paste is an important decision when deciding how to best attach a heat sink to a power-hungry component like a CPU. Each of these materials gives the important benefit of heat transfer and reduced temperature, but there are other points to be considered when using a heat sink with a thermal pad or thermal paste. Assembly houses also need to know which option a design will use, requiring that clear documentation be provided Read Article How to Make Copper-Clad Boards With the Best PCB Layout Software Some designers prefer to build their own prototypes in their home or company lab as it gives them a firsthand view of potential quality problems in their boards. While designers can go this route if they’re comfortable using etchants and cleaning solutions needed to remove copper from PCB laminates, they’ll need design tools to create their etching stencils. An at-home designer will need to procure PCB copper boards to use for etching and create Read Article How to Design Coplanar Waveguide with Ground in Your PCB RF designs that run at high frequency need high isolation from digital components, power subsystems, and external sources of noise that can degrade signal quality. One option in many RF designs is coplanar waveguide with ground as this can be used with controlled impedance routing on external layers. When you need to use coplanar waveguide with ground routing in your RF PCB designs, use the industry’s best set of routing features. Only Altium Read Article Your Complete Guide to PCB Thermal Analysis The physical properties of your PCB substrate and copper conductors are the main factors determining how a circuit board will heat up during operation. Circuit board thermal analysis techniques aim to predict when and where a board will heat up during operation, as well as how hot the board will get. This important part of the analysis is geared to ensure component-level and board-level reliability, and it can influence many design decisions Read Article The Best Capacitor Circuit Simulator for PCB Design A capacitor is a fundamental element in integrated circuits and in PCB design, and it’s hard to think of a circuit that doesn’t contain at least one capacitor. A capacitor’s behavior and interaction with other components in a circuit generally needs to be simulated to ensure the design will operate as intended. Capacitors can provide filtering, blocking, and power stability behavior depending on their use in a circuit, and a capacitor circuit Read Article How to Design an AC to DC Converter Circuit in Altium Designer An AC-to-DC converter circuit does exactly as its name implies: it takes a harmonic AC input and converts it to a DC output. These circuits are simply from a high level and when operating at low power on a breadboard, but a real AC to DC converter circuit is more complex than just a transformer and rectifier circuit. Finding the right components for these circuits and running accurate power simulations takes the right PCB design software that Read Article The Best Power Supply Circuit Design Tools With Simulation From bench-top power supplies to power regulator circuits on embedded boards, designers often need to create a custom power supply circuit design and layout. These circuits sound simple to design, but it takes the SPICE-based simulation and verification tools in Altium Designer to create a stable, high-quality power supply circuit design. Altium Designer gives you much more than circuit design and circuit simulation tools; you can easily create Read Article PCB Footprint Creation and Reuse with Altium 365 Many components come in standardized packages, but not all component manufacturers provide CAD models and schematic symbols in their PCB libraries. These CAD models show the location of pins, silkscreen information, centroids, and pads as they should appear in your PCB layout. PCB component creation can get repetitive when you need to apply an existing PCB footprint to a new component. With the component creation tools in Altium Designer and the Read Article Managing Symbol and PCB Footprint Libraries with Altium 365 When you need to collaborate on printed circuit design projects, you have a few options for sharing data. Your projects need to contain schematic symbols and PCB footprints in order to be opened on another computer, and the old ways of sharing this data are inefficient. If you have access to a cloud application that integrates with your PCB design tools, sharing data becomes easy, and you won’t be prone to neglecting shared data. Altium 365 Read Article Using Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Components Software for PCB Design Any product, including circuit boards and electronic components, will become obsolete and must be replaced with completely new versions. If a product is ever manufactured and taken to market, the product and its components will inevitably have a finite life cycle. Products are eventually upgraded to new versions and capabilities or components are added, or they become obsolete and are replaced with completely new circuit designs and technology Read Article Taking a Modular PCB Design Approach in Altium Designer PCB design is rarely discussed in terms of designing functional blocks or as connecting modules with different functionality. Simple designs can usually be designed without considering how your PCB layout affects the operation and interaction between multiple functional blocks in your board. With more complex designs, you’ll need to consider more than just the high-level overview of your board when you are designing a complex system. Modular PCB Read Article Sourcing PCB Military Grade Electronic Components in a Unified Design Environment Whether you are a procurement officer for the military, a prime contractor, or defense suppliers of electronic components, you’ll face a number of obstacles when sourcing components for electronic defense systems. Given the component shortages and potential for counterfeiting in the components market, military PCB components cannot be procured from just any company. Any component for a military grade electronic components system must meet Read Article Power Electronics for Lithium Iron Phosphate PCB Batteries in Altium Designer Power electronics encompasses a massive list of systems that make modern life possible. From automotive systems to power distribution systems, power electronics are responsible for controlling and managing the flow of power throughout an electrical system. With alternative energy systems bound to become more popular in the future, engineers and designers need the right PCB design software for power electronics systems. Design software for power Read Article PCB Library and Supply Chain Integration in Altium Concord Pro 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. Anyone planning to manufacture a new circuit board has plenty of challenges to overcome. From component shortages to outdated design data, project managers and designers face obstacles to timely production that arise from stale component data and supply chain Read Article PCB Design Reuse and Product Lifecycle Management in Altium Concord Pro 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. Reusing design data is a great way to hasten redesigns of existing hardware. Managing this design data, including version control and component data management, can be a real challenge. Production lead times are decreasing, component lifecycles are shorter, replacement Read Article Modeling and Placing PCB Connectors Within Altium Designer ALTIUM DESIGNER The most powerful, modern, and easy-to-use PCB design tool for professional use. I/O use connectors for PCB system integration In this guide to PCB connectors, we’ll take a look at connectors within electrical systems, how they benefit from ECAD/MCAD tools, and optimal design specifics like appropriate cable connectors or gold fingers gold plating. Connectors abound on printed circuit assemblies given integrated electrical Read Article Defense Industry Microcomponents and Microelectronics Defense contractors, military procurement officers, and contract manufacturers face a number of obstacles when designing and manufacturing PCBs for use in defense systems. Defense microelectronics and manufactured PCBs cannot be procured from just any company, and these components must meet rigorous standards that ensure quality and reliability. These components must also be traceable back to a compliant component manufacturer. 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