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Collaborative Design Part 2: Building a Better System Collaborative Design Part 2: Building a Better System The effectiveness of design collaboration is mostly determined by the structure and organization of the system back-end. For the second part of this blog series, we'll take a look at the best structure and practices for version control, and how this really forms a good basis for collaboration. Enter in the lifecycle management and enhanced administrative functionality of a real design release, and you have an even better foundation. From my Read Article
What is Real ECAD/MCAD Collaboration? Hint: It’s Not Exchange File Formats What is Real ECAD/MCAD Collaboration? Hint: It’s Not Exchange File Formats What does it take to achieve real ECAD/MCAD collaboration? If you’re looking for an alternative to STEP models, paper dolls, and endless email threads, then you’re not alone. Read on to find out what’s in store for the future of ECAD MCAD collaboration market in Altium Designer®! The traditionally silo’d design experience between mechanical and electrical designers is now struggling to maintain its separation. The introduction of intelligently Read Article
Collaborative Design Part 4: True ECAD/MCAD Collaboration with IDX Collaborative Design Part 4: True ECAD/MCAD Collaboration with IDX True ECAD MCAD collaboration is more than just preserving details when moving between design environments. Visibility into design changes, comparing and merging capabilities, revision tracking and commenting are all key elements of collaborative design as well. In the final part of this blog series, I look at how IDX might be the best solution yet. In the last part of this blog series, I dove into ECAD MCAD collaboration market, and why it’s so Read Article
Collaborative Design Part 1: Designing PCBs as a Unified Team Collaborative Design Part 1: Optimizing PCB Design in Teams Electronic design isn't a solo gig anymore. Teamwork among dozens or hundreds of designers, engineers, suppliers, manufacturers, and any number of other people is essential for bringing a product to market. This blog series explores the ways to cut through the barriers and reduce some of the tedious back-and-forth dialog that slows design cycles to a crawl. In part 1, we'll take a look at what kinds of features make for effective collaboration Read Article
Using 3D STEP Models to Reduce Design Respins Using 3D STEP Models to Reduce PCB Design Respins Integrating mechanical design workflows into electrical design tools has become a necessary component of today’s successful PCB design processes. But transferring inaccurate design data back and forth between the ECAD and MCAD worlds can not only cause frustrations felt by both design teams but can also drastically increase the number of design spins required to fit a PCB into its final assembly. Regardless of the electrical design tool’s 3D Read Article
Supporting Seamless Design Communication with 3D PDFs Supporting Seamless Design Communication with 3D PDFs With the increasing complexity of modern PCB designs, effectively communicating design intent is a growing challenge that threatens both speed-to-market and overall production costs. In the race to bring quality products to market before your competition, information has to be shared quickly and efficiently while clearly conveying critical aspects of the design. But how can you go about doing that? Leveraging Native 3D™ PDF Exporting One way of Read Article
How to Simplify and Automate Your PCB ECO Workflow Automating PCB Design Environments: How to Simplify and Automate Your PCB ECO Workflow Shuffling different programs for your schematic and PCB layout design changes costs both time and money. Altium Designer® tackles this issue with a unified design system that automatically transfers data between schematic and PCB using component links. Read on to learn how component links are increasing productivity by automating ECO procedures. Transferring data from schematic to PCB, or vice versa, is traditionally a task stretched across Read Article
IoT and The Three C’s IoT and The Three C’s As our designs get more complex, they require more communication between the connected devices themselves and the design teams. The design community, ECAD, MCAD, and software, must come together to facilitate successful creation of IoT products. Collaboration between design teams doesn’t have to be a hassle. We should strive to maximize collaboration in our design process to create higher quality products. Every day we learn more about humanity Read Article
How 3D Modeling Has Changed Electronics Design Forever How 3D Modeling Has Changed Electronics Design Forever Designing electronics in the late 1990s or early 2000s was a very different experience than it is today. Older PCB designs often weren’t limited regarding real estate. They also often didn’t have as many mechanical constraints as modern designs do. While it’s true that electronic components are much smaller today than they were 15 to 20 years ago, the mechanical envelopes that they must fit into have gotten smaller as well. Today, it’s essential Read Article
PCB Design Guide for Engineers, Part 1 PCB Design Guide for Engineers, Part 1 Bringing a design from conception to fully assembled PCB is a daunting task that requires the cohesion of an entire team. Understanding each team member’s role in the design process is tantamount to the successful development of your product. Read on to find out more. Unite Your PCB Design Team to Deliver Successful Products Bringing a design from conception to fully assembled PCB is a daunting task that requires the cohesion of an entire team Read Article
The Value of a Built-in 3D Measurement Tool The Value of a Built-in 3D Measurement Tool The built-in 3D measurement features in Altium Designer® has advantages that go above and beyond your average design tool. Read on to discover the true value of integrated 3D measurement capabilities. The Altium PCB layout editor gives designers the ability to display their board in glorious 3D. With the help of Microsoft® DirectX, the PCB editor allows the complete visualization of printed boards, completely loaded with all of their components Read Article
Optimize Component Power Ratings with Embedded Design Rules Optimize Component Power Ratings with Embedded Design Rules Ensuring your initial rules are properly applied the first time is critical to eliminating the need for redesign. By creating conditional limitations and implementing embedded design rules, you can circumvent the potential for error to avoid respins and ensure precise power ratings in your PCB layout. Read on to learn more. I remember my first design that failed during qualification. It was a proven design that had already passed a previous Read Article
How to Protect the Integrity of Your Design Files with Storage Manager How to Protect the Integrity of Your Design Files with Storage Manager There are a number of occurrences that can cause you to lose your work. How can you easily protect the integrity of your pcb design files at design time? Read on to find out. You are in the zone today. You have been working on your design five hours straight and making huge progress. That layer stackup problem you were having…Solved! (Thanks to a great video on how to get the layer stack right.) The via perforated power plane… Conquered! Then you Read Article
Customize BOM Reports for Consistent Documentation Customize BOM Reports for Consistent Documentation Learn how to clearly communicate proper board assembly with multiple variants with BOM customization in Altium Designer. Upon completion of a design, the project enters the assembly process where the assemblers and/or purchasers rely on trustworthy documentation to provide a list of components, materials, and parts necessary to produce the board design. This document, called the bill of materials (BOM), lists all of the required materials needed Read Article
Creating Unusual Shapes in Altium Designer - The Donut Creating Unusual Shapes in Altium Designer - The Donut Read Article
Team Collaboration & PCB Design Team Collaboration & PCB Design There was a time when once a circuit design was completed, it was handed off to “the PCB designer”, who then produced the board layout. Now, with products as complex as tablets, smartphones and even electronic games, there is no single person involved with the PCB. Products are designed by teams of experts and without the ability to effectively collaborate, time is wasted and errors introduced. There was a time when once a concept design was Read Article
Creating 3D Component Bodies in a Footprint Library Creating 3D Component Bodies in a Footprint Library Learn how to transfer accurate ECAD design data between MCAD and ECAD worlds to ensure your PCB design fits into its final assembly with 3D component bodies. To learn more about this topic please see the full solution - Creating Accurate 3D Component Bodies - at Altium.com. Read Article