PCB Data Management

A lot of data is generated during the PCB design process, and your design data must be maintained well beyond the end of the design phase. Altium helps ensure long-term and short-term secure storage of your design data and PCB design reuse. Browse our library of resources on PCB design data management to learn more.

What is PCB Data Management? Design Data Management Solutions Altium 365 Library Migration Collaboration and Version Control

Build Your Next LED PCB Design in Altium's Unified Environment

Build Your Next LED PCB Design in Altium's Unified Environment LED driver boards can be challenging designs when running at high power and high voltage. Power systems for driving devices like LED panels need careful planning and layout for power supply sections, and the LED PCB itself needs to be laid out to ensure low-temperature operation. These objectives can be difficult to balance without the best set of PCB layout features and DC analysis tools. When you need to create a high-power LED PCB design Read Article

Transition from Hobby PCB Maker to Professional Designer with Altium

Transition from Hobby PCB Maker to Professional Designer with Altium Most new designers start off with freeware when they need to create their first PCB designs, but free PCB design software lacks many features required to create real circuit boards. Hobby PCB designers and makers need a range of tools to create high-quality circuit boards and eventually create real devices. Instead of using free PCB layout software and other programs to help get designs into production, hobby PCB makers need professional design Read Article

Design Your Small Circuit Board in Altium Designer

Design Your Small Circuit Board in Altium Designer Large circuit boards, small circuit boards, and anything in between might seem like they need separate sets of PCB layout features. In reality, your PCB design software shouldn’t delineate your PCB design based on size. Whether you need to design a large or small circuit board, a design application with high-quality CAD tools will help you get the job done quickly and prepare your board for production. Small circuit board designs are much easier Read Article

photodiode circuit

Designing and Simulating a Photodiode Circuit for Your PCB Your design tools should give you an easy way to create circuit diagrams, simulate electrical behavior, and start a new PCB layout. A photodiode circuit is important in many applications, ranging from simple ON/OFF light detection to receiving digital data in an optical fiber. These semiconductor devices are similar to a regular diode, but they can be difficult to simulate without the right component models and circuit design tools. With Altium Read Article

Use Supply Chain Tools in Altium Designer When You Need a PCB Cost Calculator

Use Supply Chain Tools in Altium Designer When You Need a PCB Cost Calculator Anytime you need to prepare a new design and plan a production run, it’s important to work up an estimate for design, PCB fabrication, assembly, shipping, components, and any other portions of a project. There is a lot that goes into any project and it needs to be planned out early in order to prevent cost overruns. Some designers looking for manufacturing services and component prices might be tempted to use an online calculator, but this is Read Article

Altium’s Parameter Table Editor Lets You Control Your Project Settings

Altium’s Parameter Table Editor Lets You Control Your Project Settings There’s a lot of data that goes into any PCB design project. The design files and project files all have their own parameters, and these can be customized to provide plenty of useful information for data management. ECAD software users need a simple way to keep their parameter sets organized within their project files, component libraries, and much more. Parameters can appear in all types of objects in your ECAD software, as well as in any type Read Article

Altium Designer Beats Any OEMSTrade Electronics Part Search

Altium Designer Beats Any OEMSTrade Electronics Part Search Finding and sourcing new components for your design should be an easy process. Parts specifications can get very detailed, and there are many component options to browse through on the market. How can designers narrow down to the components they need and source components from authorized distributors? Using an OEMSTrade electronics part search and other distributor websites only gives you a partial view of the supply chain. Thanks to its Read Article

Design and Simulate Any Low Pass Filter Circuit for Your PCB

Design and Simulate Any Low Pass Filter Circuit for Your PCB Many engineers will do some basic calculations by hand in order to understand their filter and amplifier circuits. However, for complex circuits that do not obey standard series and parallel rules, or that use nonlinear components like diodes and transistors, more sophisticated methods are needed. As such, designers need an easy-to-use but powerful simulation application to aid filter design and simulation. Some programs make simulations Read Article

Build a Comprehensive Electronic Symbols Library in Altium Designer

Build a Comprehensive Electronic Symbols Library in Altium Designer Electronic symbols are the basis for the CAD documents you’ll create before you prepare a circuit board layout. An electronic symbols library contains basic symbols and figures that are used in electrical drawings, and they need to be linked to the PCB footprints that will appear in your PCB layout. When you need to prepare and organize clear PCB layouts and electrical drawings, you need a reliable source of CAD symbols and PCB footprints, and it Read Article

Quickly Replicate Circuits with a Connection Room in Your PCB Layout

Quickly Replicate Circuits with a Connection Room in Your PCB Layout Modern PCB designs can get very complex, and designers need tools to help them stay organized. Schematic sheets are a great start, but simply organizing different circuit blocks into different schematics is not enough to ensure your designs are organized. Altium Designer unifies your schematic design and PCB layout tasks into a single program, and it includes a PCB connection rooms feature to keep your circuit blocks synchronized. Here’s how you Read Article

Configuring a Hardware in the Loop Project

Configuring a Hardware in the Loop Project This article will walk through an example project of a board designed in Altium Designer and run through a DevOps flow using hardware in the loop testing against its firmware. Read Article

Pro Tips on Adopting to a New Design System

How to Build a New Data Management System Listen to the Podcast: Download this episode (right click and save) Watch the video: Show Highlight - Pro Tips! How do you build a new data management system? Build templates and defaults (files) and remember to always do this FIRST - copy the Altium defaults and set them up from there. Please review all the parameters and learn how they flow. Then check in to Concord / Altium365. Review and organize your categorization system. Make templates Read Article

PCB templates

How to Use Design Data and PCB Templates in the Cloud Altium 365 provides an easy way to store, manage, and access PCB templates as part of design reuse. Learn more in our short guide. Read Article

Managing Your Circuit Board Parts in Altium Designer

Managing Your Circuit Board Parts in Altium Designer There’s a multitude of component manufacturers, and each produces a huge number of components. No one can keep track of all information for every circuit board part. PCB components contain more information than just electrical specifications. Your PCB components also contain pin layouts, schematic symbols, SPICE model information, and even 3D models. Today’s PCB design teams need solutions to help them keep their circuit board parts and libraries Read Article

Managing Symbol and PCB Footprint Libraries with Altium 365

Managing Symbol and PCB Footprint Libraries with Altium 365 When you need to collaborate on printed circuit design projects, you have a few options for sharing data. Your projects need to contain schematic symbols and PCB footprints in order to be opened on another computer, and the old ways of sharing this data are inefficient. If you have access to a cloud application that integrates with your PCB design tools, sharing data becomes easy, and you won’t be prone to neglecting shared data. Altium 365 Read Article

Using Product Lifecycle Management Software for PCB Design

Using Product Lifecycle Management Software for PCB Design Any product, including circuit boards and electronic components, will become obsolete and must be replaced with completely new versions. If a product is ever manufactured and taken to market, the product and its components will inevitably have a finite life cycle. Products are eventually upgraded to new versions and capabilities or components are added, or they become obsolete and are replaced with completely new circuit designs and technology Read Article

What is ISO 14300

What is ISO 14300 In looking for the answer of what is ISO 14300, find out about space exploration device requirements and the potential behind CAD tools. ALTIUM DESIGNER PCB Design software with excellent communication through the design process. The International Standards Organization (ISO) represents 163 national standards bodies and functions as an independent, non-governmental entity. ISO meetings bring experts together to share knowledge and to gain Read Article