Hello, Welcome to the Altium Learning Hub

Intro Interfacing DDR volatile memory to FPGA without prior experience can initially seem quite daunting. Despite an FPGA’s inherent flexibility, where we could assume that we can connect the external DDR memory’s I/O seemingly anywhere to any free pins, we still need to consider many constraints. For instance, where to place certain DDR memory pin groups, what voltages to run the banks at, what clocks we need and where we attach them, how to...

Although a power supply might look like it produces clean power on an oscilloscope, power supply operation in a real system can create noise or be susceptible to noise. Power rails often need to serve power to multiple devices in a system at the same voltage, but with clean power in different portions of the system. When that is the case, noise on the main rail may need to be cleaned up before being provided to different portions of your system....

We have a seasoned favorite guest in the podcast today. John Mitchell the President and CEO of IPC talks about his new book Firing Your Hiring Habits. This is a very insightful conversation! We tackled acquisition, retaining and upskilling talents in your team. PCB designers, aspiring entrepreneurs and leaders in any company will surely benefit from this discussion. Make sure to watch through the end and check the additional resources below. Li...

Back in the early days of ECAD software, not all designers would have access to a PCB trace impedance calculator. However, they still might need to design a high-speed PCB or an RF PCB, and that means there is a trace impedance requirement. For differential pairs, this meant that there was a differential pair impedance requirement, or rather an odd-mode impedance requirement. No matter what the case was, if you did not have an impedance...

When we talk about packaging, substrate-like PCBs, and fine-line PCBs, we are collectively referencing an area where PCB fabrication processing is pushing to the limit. This area is ultra-HDI, where the typical features in a PCB are scaled down to very small values. These more advanced capabilities enable traditional design practices with larger BGAs, but instead scaled into very fine pitches (0.3 mm) requiring tight spacing and linewidth. These...

The ability to bend, flex and fold are one of the primary benefits of flexible circuit materials and while there are several examples of flexible circuit designs that withstand hundreds of thousands of even millions of flexes, the reality is that designs that are dynamically flexing often have had the design updated many times before reaching optimal performance.  The good news for designers new to flexible circuit designs is that most flexible...

Troubleshooting power supply current handling issues is crucial to achieving optimal performance of your electronic devices. In this video, we will explore the common reasons why a power supply fails to handle the defined output current and provide practical solutions to solving these issues. Whether you are designing a power supply or repairing an existing one, understanding the structure of the power supply is key to quickly solving these...

RF PCB designs often make use of low-loss PTFE-based materials thanks to their very low dielectric losses and huge range of possible Dk values. These materials use polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) as the base material, but this is not the only constituent in these laminate materials. There are also reinforcements and fillers that are used to engineer PTFE PCB materials to have their required material properties. Commercially available PTFE-based...

As of 2023 and 2024, the next data rate doubling in data center architecture is taking us to 224 Gbps per lane of serial data. This data rate doubling is not achieved by doubling the clock directly, but rather by doubling the baud rate through higher order 4-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4). The decision to implement PAM-4 is necessary in order to extend data rates without extending the required channel bandwidths  We are witnessing an...