ECAD/MCAD PCB Design

Today's designs carry strict mechanical and electrical constraints, and both sets of constraints need to be considered in your PCB design process. Browse our library of resources to learn more about electronic computer aided design (ECAD) and mechanical computer aided design (MCAD) for printed circuit boards.

CoDesigner and MCAD Component Placement ECAD/MCAD Collaboration Differences Between ECAD and MCAD MCAD CoDesigner

26:26 CoDesigner and MCAD Component Placement We design products not just PCBs requiring effective collaboration between MCAD and ECAD engineers. We need to consider how we Watch Video

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

MCAD CoDesigner - Rejection Comments

MCAD CoDesigner - Rejection Comments MCAD CoDesigner now displays the complete history of accepted and rejected changes, along with any comments the engineer has entered if a change is rejected. The history of changes is shown in MCAD CoDesigner's panel, making the interaction between the electrical and mechanical engineers more transparent. As soon as changes are applied/rejected on one side, the engineer on the other side is notified, and any rejection comments are displayed Read Article

ECAD MCAD Integration

Mechanical and Electrical Design Come Together With Altium’s MCAD CoDesigner Electronics designers working in small design houses or in large enterprises often encounter a common set of challenges when interfacing with mechanical designers. For many new products, the mechanical form factor requirements will constrain the electrical design in terms of physical layout, location of interfaces, and component selection. For many electronic products, flex and rigid-flex board designs require careful modeling of the mechanical Read Article

What is the difference between ECAD and MCAD

What is the Difference Between ECAD and MCAD? Mark Harris gives us an introduction to the difference between ECAD and MCAD in this article. Use the best PCB design software for ECAD/MCAD integration. Read Article

Spinning gears with the word collaboration on them

Successful ECAD/MCAD Collaboration Practices In this article Zachariah Peterson, founder of Northwest Engineering Solutions, discusses how his company successfully collaborates with mechanical engineers outside of his firm. He shares practices and tools that have been most useful along the way. Judy Warner: Zach, as an engineer and the owner of Northwest Engineering Solutions (NWES), what challenges do you see as most prevalent and problematic for design engineers when it comes to 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

PCB Library and Supply Chain Integration in Altium Concord Pro

PCB Library and Supply Chain Integration in Altium Concord Pro 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 information. Sourcing shouldn’t be guesswork, and it shouldn’t require 3rd party tools that only provide visibility to a portion of the supply chain. Supply chain changes can catch any Read Article

PCB Design Reuse and Product Lifecycle Management in Altium Concord Pro

PCB Design Reuse and Product Lifecycle Management in Altium Concord Pro Reusing design data is a great way to hasten redesigns of existing hardware. Managing this design data, including version control and component data management, can be a real challenge. Production lead times are decreasing, component lifecycles are shorter, replacement parts are pushed to market sooner, and design data steadily grows as new designs become more complex. Reusing design data for a portion of an existing board or functional blocks Read Article

Connectors Benefit from Compatible ECAD/MCAD Tools

Modeling and Placing 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

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 models, 3D component models, 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 data management platform that operates directly 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 is easy with a complete set of design tools and a cloud platform to view CAD drawings. Your PCB design features should make it easy to create a circuit board and take it through manufacturing. Instead of settling for freeware CAD programs or mechanical programs like AutoCAD, your team can connect through powerful tools that allow secure access to all design files in a PCB project. Whether you need to view your board or Read Article

How the Best Integrated PCB Libraries Lower Development Costs

How the Best Integrated PCB Libraries 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

Spot Copper Connection Errors in Design Rule Checks

Instantly Check Every Copper 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

Extreme ECAD/MCAD Integration in Altium Designer

Model Your PCB Supports with MCAD Integration in Altium Designer You can place mechanical elements like PCB supports and mounts with the complete set of MCAD features in Altium Designer. Read Article

Enclosures for Flex, Rigid-flex, and Multiboard Designs

Use ECAD/MCAD Co-design for Your PCB Enclosure and Board Layout Printed circuit boards are fun to design and lay out, but a PCB will need an enclosure to hold it mechanically stable. PCB enclosures can be purchased off-the-shelf or they can be custom-designed in MCAD tools. No matter which route you take to create your enclosure, you’ll need to import your PCB layout into MCAD tools to ensure your board and components will not interfere with the enclosure. When you’re working with a complex layout, multiboard Read Article

Stay Productive When You Switch to Altium Designer

Upgrade from AutoCAD PCB to Altium Designer's Unified Environment Most designers are familiar with AutoCAD for mechanical or construction drafting, and for making important engineering diagrams. Although AutoCAD is great for many tasks involved in electrical or mechanical engineering, PCB designers need more than mechanical drafting tools to make advanced electronics. To get your designs to the next level, you need the best set of ECAD tools on the market, rather than using the AutoCAD PCB package. If you’re Read Article