PCB Components

Sourcing Military PCB Components in a Unified Design Environment

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

PCB Library and Supply Chain Integration in Altium Concord Pro

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 From component shortages to outdated design data, project managers and designers face obstacles to timely production that arise from stale component data and supply chain Read Article

Connectors Benefit from Compatible ECAD/MCAD Tools

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

Sourcing Microelectronics for Military Systems

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. Only Altium Read Article

How to Keep Your 3D PCB Models Current with Data Management Tools

How to Keep Your 3D PCB Models Current with Data Management Tools Any component includes a significant amount of design data. This includes electrical design data management software, electrical models, 3D PCB model components, and PCB supplier information. Your PCB design software should be allowed to take this data and integrate it with your MCAD tools. This allows you to create 3D body models from your PCB footprints and integrate them into a data library. Ensuring that this data stays up to date takes a Read Article

Designing to Military Grade Electronics: PCB Specifications with Altium Designer

Designing to Military Grade Electronics: PCB Specifications with Altium Designer Military-grade PCBs carry stringent performance, sourcing, and manufacturing requirements that are encoded in a number of standards. Preparing your next Printed Circuit Board for a military electronics system for manufacturing and assembly must also follow important sourcing and quality standards. Meeting all of these requirements is easiest when you have access to all your design and production planning tools in a single program. Only Altium Read Article

Designing Physical Layer Security for Military PCBs in Altium Designer

Designing Physical Layer Security for Military PCBs in Altium Designer PCBs for military systems are high performing beasts that must meet stringent design and performance standards. Military systems that store and process sensitive data require extra layers of security that goes beyond locking them in a secure enclosure. You’ll need to design your Printed Circuit Boards to be extremely resistant to EMI, route data so that it cannot be tapped passively, and include blacked-out chips to prevent attackers from Read Article

Advanced Tools for Your Aluminum PCB Layout

The Best Printed Circuit Board Design Software for Your Aluminum PCB Whether for thermal performance, electrical isolation, or mechanical strength, your aluminum PCB needs the precision of Altium Designer to meet your design requirements. Altium Designer allows almost any aspect of your circuit boards to be customized, including the metal core or backing on an aluminum PCB. Designers can also specify other materials in their documentation for their fabricator, such as ceramics, aluminum flex PCBs, or other Read Article

Create, Share, Collaborate, and View CAD Drawings with Altium Designer

Create, Share, Collaborate, and View CAD Drawings with Altium Designer PCB design collaboration becomes seamless with a complete suite of design tools and a cloud platform for viewing CAD drawings. Your PCB design software should streamline the entire process, from creation to manufacturing. Instead of relying on freeware or mechanical programs like AutoCAD, empower your team with powerful tools that enable secure access to all design files in a PCB project, ensuring efficient and effective collaboration. Whether Read Article

How the Best Integrated PCB Libraries Lower Development Costs

How the Best Integrated PCB Libraries Compare Electronic Components to Lower Development Costs With development schedules becoming tighter and technology advancing at an ever faster pace, designers and engineers need tools that help them cut development costs and stay competitive in every way. This means designers need supply chain tools that help them compare electronic component prices and manage their fabrication data in a single program. Each integrated library helps lower development costs and time by providing the supply chain Read Article

Electronics Inventory Management Software

Sync Your Electronics Inventory Management System With the Cloud Do you use internal databases and tracking tools for electronics inventory management? Sync your inventory management system with the cloud. Read Article

symbolic division

Guidelines for Creating Useful PCB Schematic Symbols The PCB schematic symbols that you use to represent the components are at the heart of your schematic design. The quality of the PCB symbols and how it is arranged can be one of the most critical factors influencing your schematic’s readability. Poor quality PCB schematic symbols will lead to an unreadable schematic sheet that is difficult to understand. I created the largest open-source library for Altium Designer over five years ago, initially Read Article

What They do not Teach you About Capacitors

What They Don't Teach You About Capacitors In engineering, we often adopt hundreds of mental shortcuts in order to keep the complexity of the topics we tackle to a manageable level. If we were to run a quantum-physics simulation every time we flash an LED, we would never get anything done. Yet, many of these shortcuts and rules-of-thumb were created in times past , when the electronics industry was radically different than what it is now. Today, we are going to unlearn what a capacitor is Read Article

Transmission Line and PCB Track Design

Transmission Lines in PCB Track Design Digital designs fall broadly into two categories: low-speed and high-speed. The category “high speed” does not necessarily mean a high clock rate. Rather, it refers to the rise time of the signal during switching, which leads to propagating wave behavior on long PCB tracks. When a PCB track gets too long, it needs to be designed like a transmission line, not just a simple conductor with DC resistance. Understanding how to design transmission Read Article

How to Find the Transistor Parts You Need for Your Circuit Board

How to Find the Transistor PCB Parts You Need for Your Circuit Board Design Transistors are vital components in power supplies, high-power ICs, and embedded systems, enabling efficient switching in electronics, sensors, and analog systems. To streamline design and ensure proper functionality, access to comprehensive PCB supply chain tools is essential for sourcing and integrating transistor parts seamlessly into your projects. When you use the complete set of PCB design tools in Altium Designer, you can do more than Read Article

PCB Relay Selection, Design, and Layout are Easy in Altium Designer

PCB Relay Selection, Design, and Layout are Easy in Altium Designer Circuit protection is vital for user safety and for protecting a board from electrical damage. Whether you’re working with a small, moderate power PCB or a large, high voltage electromechanical system, power surges or faults can destroy components and create hazards for users. The best way to ensure your next device remains safe from high voltage ESD or large current surges is to use a simple PCB relay. Compared to large relays that need to be Read Article

Spot Copper Connection Errors in Design Rule Checks

Copper Connection Software: Instantly Check Every Connection With Rules-Driven PCB Design Tools It’s easy to find errors in most simple PCBs. Simply scan through your critical nets and trace each copper connection from source to load. Today’s printed circuit boards are not so easy to inspect and validate by eye. Even relatively simple low-speed boards can have hundreds of components packed into a small space, and it’s easy to get lost in a complex PCB layout. Today’s modern designs demand modern design tools. Altium Designer users have Read Article