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Altium Designer - PCB Design Software

Easy, Powerful, Modern: Altium Designer is the world’s most trusted PCB design system for professionals and students. Browse our resources to learn more about how Altium Designer is revolutionizing the PCB design industry, and empowering designers to bring all of their ideas to life!

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Types of TVS Diode

ESD Protection Basics with TVS Diodes Learn about ESD protection basics with TVS diodes, why we need them, and what key parameters make up a typical TVS diode. Read Article

Come See the New Power Analyzer by Keysight in Altium Designer 22.9

Come See the New Power Analyzer by Keysight in Altium Designer 22.9 October 28, 2022 ONTRACK BI-WEEKLY Announcing Power Analyzer for Altium Designer, by Keysight Technologies Keysight Technologies and Altium have teamed up to bring you a new Altium Designer Extension for DC power integrity analysis. Power Analyzer by Keysight brings sophisticated DC power analysis to the PCB editor in Altium Designer without the need for expensive prototypes, complicated tools or specialized skills. Analyze your power network Read Article

Board Layer Stackup Considerations for High Speed Board Design

Board Layer Stackup Considerations for High Speed Board Design The PCB layer stackup you build to support high-speed board design needs to be engineered based on layer counts, layer thicknesses, and component lead size. Read Article

High-Speed PCB Stackup Design

The High-Speed PCB Stackup Design Challenge Stackups for high-speed PCBs can be designed many ways, but these systems must be built by balancing engineering constraints in a final product. Read Article

Stepped Impedance Transformer for Complex Loads

Stepped Impedance Transformer for Complex Loads This article will show how a complex load can be converted to a real load with an impedance transformer for any line length and impedance. Read Article

RF Trace Taper

How to Design an RF Trace Taper for Impedance Matching Transmission line taper structures can provide superior impedance matching between two transmission lines with approximately real impedance. Read Article

Transfer Vias and Stitching Vias

Vias 101 Part 2 In this part two of the “Vias 101” blog, Philip examines the aspects of via placement, problems with via placement leading to plane voiding, and will discuss some unique use cases of vias termed transfer vias and stitching vias. Read Article

Proper Placement and Recommended Parameters

Vias 101 Part 1 In this blog, Phil Salmony offers beginner PCB design engineers a good starting point to understanding vias. In part one, we will tackle the basics and recommended parameters. Read now to learn more. Read Article

PCB Routing and Layout to Minimise EMI

PCB Design Tips for EMI and SI Part 2 In this article, Philip tackles the basic principles and ways you should route and lay out your PCBs to minimise risks of EMI problems, and to maintain proper signal integrity. Read Article

Reflectionless Matching vs. Conjugate Matching

Reflectionless Matching vs. Conjugate Matching: An Apparent Contradiction Are reflectionless matching and conjugate matching contradictory? When we look at the formulation for power waves and S-parameters, we see where these are different. Read Article

Altium Designer 22.9 Brings New Productivity Features For Commenting and Design Reuse

Altium Designer 22.9 Brings New Productivity Features For Commenting and Design Reuse October 14, 2022 ONTRACK BI-WEEKLY What’s New in Altium Designer? The newest enhancements in Altium Designer 22.9 include design reuse updates, a variant update, and a new feature in the footprint editor: Variant improvement in schematics - AD22.9 brings even more improvements to variant creation and management. New tools help streamline creation and management of design variants. Add comments to your BOM - The Comments feature can now be used in Read Article

Managing PCB objects

Managing PCB objects The PCB panel allows you to view and edit each object on PCB. A quick search of the desired class or object is provided by the filtering system with several object type modes and flexible customization of displayed results. Quick overview Panel access Use View > Panels > PCB or select PCB from the Panels drop-down menu to access the panel. Panel modes Display management Visual highlighting effects Normal mode - filtered objects are highlighted Read Article

Quarter-Wave Transformer

Quarter-Wave Transformer Design For Real and Reactive Loads All quarter-wavelength transformers can be used for real loads, but some can be used for reactive loads with an additional transmission line section. Read Article

PCB Design Tips for EMI and SI Part 1

PCB Design Tips for EMI and SI Part 1 Read and learn the basics of signals, energy, and fields, as well as rise and fall times in the digital domain and what this means for us as PCB designers. Read Article

Properties panel document options in SCH editors

The Properties Panel and Document Options in the Schematic Editor The Properties panel provides access to the properties of documents and objects. The contents of the panel change depending on the active document or the selected object. The set of properties completely covers all the necessary parameters and settings of the object. Summary Document options are used to customize the grid, fonts, sheet format, and more. You can access them in the Properties panel. Document options in a SCH library Document Read Article

Link Budget Calculator

RF Signal Chain and Link Budget Basics Learn about link budget in RF design and use our link budget calculator to evaluate your RF signal chain. Read Article

Buck Converter Component Sizing

Buck Converter Component Sizing An overview of what calculations are required when sizing components for a switching buck converter. Read Article