What's the best way to make a library searchable? Parameters - Component Development Part 3 It's one thing to make great components, but it's quite another to make them easy to find. With reusable components, ui component, software engineering and various component based development, things can be complicated to hunt down. In this blog I explain how we handle component parameters, why they are important, and how we kick off our component development process. Looking at the discussion spawned from my first two blogs, I’ve a feeling this Read Article Creating a custom Altium pick and place file I recently worked with a customer who had to generate a nonstandard pick and place file because his assembly house was using antiquated equipment and could not accept a standard Altium pick and place file. I thought it might be helpful to show how to use the Bill of Material generator within Altium Designer® to create a custom report to meet such needs. I recently worked with a customer who had to generate a nonstandard pick and place file Read Article AltiumLive just got even better Today I am excited to share the details of the next major release to AltiumLive. We are introducing a few new features including: your personal Wall, Dashboard - providing your administrator with a view of your organization - and the Content Store, which is a section dedicated to the growing list of content and Altium Designer® updates that are available. The Forums, BugCrunch and the Blogs that you have grown to enjoy, are still available and Read Article Power Nets Management: Circuit Board Best Practices A recent BugCrunch item (Power input vs output) raised the long standing issue of power management in Altium Designer®. PCB fabrication can be a complicated process when considering all of the items that go into it. Between the vias, solder mask, and solder, things can get messy. To ensure we are all on the same page, I have some opinions on PCB assembly before work gets started. As always, I will be very interested in your thoughts and comments Read Article The Hateful Five of PCB Manufacturing You just completed your last design review, got that needed approval signature, and the finish line has never been closer, or so you think. Even after your components are sourced and your board is laid out perfectly, the biggest challenge is yet to come - ensuring that all those months of design and team effort don’t go to waste when it comes time to communicate design intent to manufacturing. But how do you navigate this stage of your post Read Article The Real Costs of Failed Design Collaboration Our design processes have failed us. All over the world, engineers are struggling every day with the simple process of communication between electrical and mechanical design teams. What plagues us is not the lack of power in our tools, but their inability to adapt to what is an entirely different product design workflow than what was required a decade ago. Our design processes have failed us. All over the world, engineers are struggling every day Read Article New PDN Analysis Extension Now Available for Altium Designer Read about a new extension for Altium Designer® that allows you to efficiently optimize your at design time. With digital designs continuing to increase in density and complexity, it’s more difficult and critical than ever to fully understand the impact of design decisions on your Power Distribution Network () voltage and current performance. Rather than treating issues as a post-design afterthought in a physical prototype, you need a way to Read Article DC Analysis of a PDN: Essential for the Digital Designer As PCBs become increasingly miniaturized, engineers are commonly faced with incorporating multiple power planes on the same layer. While this design practice introduces coupling issues, the real question is whether they can be resolved without a dedicated PDN analysis tool. Read on to find out. DC Analysis of a PDN: Essential for the Digital Designer Is there enough copper? DC analysis of a power delivery network (“PDN”), commonly referred to as Read Article How to Make History, One Rocket at a Time As we celebrate SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft making history and achieving what was widely discounted as impossible just few years ago, we know that all that effort didn't come from a void, but rather from hard work, innovation, dedication, and of course utilizing the right tools to manage all the phases of their designs from the various disciplines. As my old man used to say - if you fail, keep trying until you make history (maybe not his exact Read Article Altium Designer 16.1 Now Available Altium ® 16.1 is now available to all Altium Subscription customers. Altium Designer® 16.1 Now Available Altium 16.1 is here , and it’s better than ever! This release is available now as a free upgrade to all Altium Subscription customers and can be downloaded on the Altium Downloads page . Not an Altium Subscription customer? Contact our support team to upgrade. In this release, we’ve packed in powerful technology to automate your documentation Read Article Battling Your Power and Data Transmission Demands As an industry, we have approached the increased power consumption and data transmission requirements differently depending on the application of our devices and peripherals. Wouldn’t it be great to have a simplified solution that everyone could use? Do your designs invariably require more components as you struggle to maintain an elegant design? As we seek to expand the capabilities of our devices, the arduous task of keeping our board designs Read Article The Top Two File Format Alternatives to Replace Gerber RS-274X Despite its popular use in about 90% of all PCBs designed worldwide, Gerber RS-274X has several practical limitations that can lead to a number of problems during your fabrication process. What are the alternatives to this file format? Read on to find out. Meta Description: Although Gerber RS-274X is used in about 90% of all PCB designs it has several practical limitations. Gerber RS-274X is the de facto standard for PCB design software, but that Read Article 6 PCB Design Stats to Make You Look Smart around the Water cooler By nature of your role on a team that designs and manufactures printed circuit boards, there’s a lot you need to know about PCB design, from rules of thumb to design for manufacturability to the fabrication process, and more. But how much do you really know about PCBs and how they’re used? Read on... By nature of your role on a team that designs and manufactures printed circuit boards, there’s a lot you need to know about PCB design, from rules Read Article How to Automate Your Component Management Process How many times have you found yourself deep in a project, only to find that one of the main components is on backorder, or, worse yet, is in obsolescence? This happens to engineers every day, but it doesn't’ have to. Read to learn more about automating your component management process. How many times have you found yourself deep in a project, only to find that one of the main components is on backorder, or, worse yet, is in obsolescence? How Read Article How to Improve Your Routing Techniques With the routing protocol being one of the most time-consuming board layout tasks, designers need as many tools as possible for today’s complex design requirements. But with board layouts incorporating broad support of component, wifi signal and fabrication technologies in increasingly smaller components enclosure sizes that call for a specific router bit, how can we ever automate this time-consuming process? Read on to get a look into how you Read Article 5 Myths about PCB Design-Busted! Our industry changes everyday, and we need to make sure we keep up. Design constraints today may not be an issue tomorrow, so make sure you’re following fact and not fiction. Here are 5 myths of PCB design. There are a number of guidelines to PCB design, to help you create circuit boards that are low-power, bug-free, and generally functional. Some of these guidelines can be bent occasionally, depending on what your design needs, like component Read Article How to Optimize Your Power Distribution Network in Only Four Steps Modern designers face a problem that we traditionally did not have to think about: Power Distribution Network () integrity. We have all seen the need for signal integrity for decades, but power integrity has fallen to the wayside for just as long. Traditionally we have had plenty of space to use dedicated power planes that easily supplied our designs with everything they required for operation. But as we continue to push the physical limits of Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page206 Current page207 Page208 Page209 Page210 Page211 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More