About Author

Sam Sattel

Sam currently serves as the Director of Technical Marketing at Altium and has grown throughout the company in a variety of positions over the past 15 years. He started his journey in engineering at Sony as a Mechanical Engineer, and has held positions in board design, sales, and product management at various organizations.

Recent Articles

Rigid-Flex PCB Design - A Fabricator’s Perspective

Rigid-Flex PCB Design - A Fabricator’s Perspective Do you have all the knowledge you need to design not just a proper rigid-flex PCB, but one that’s efficiently optimized for your manufacturing process? Learn how to avoid the 7 most common rigid-flex design mistakes from the manufacturing experts at Sierra Circuits! As PCB designers, we commonly approach rigid-flex design from our limited perspectives, concerning ourselves with streamlining workflows, saving space on board layouts, and choosing Read Article

6 Things for Your PCB Design Library

6 Things to Have in Your Team’s PCB Design Library Components form the building blocks of our Printed Board designs, and making the right component selections can make or break a project’s budget. Are you doing everything you can to ensure that your design is both maintained and updated on a regular basis? More importantly, how are you ensuring that only approved, ready-to-use components are being used in your current PCB designs? Read on as we reveal the 6 things you need to have in your team’s Read Article

How Many Interfaces Does It Take to Complete a PCB Design?

PCB Design Environment Migration: How Many Interfaces Does It Take to Complete a PCB Design? Ever find yourself juggling multiple interfaces just to accomplish one singular goal of your PCB design? Learn how easy it can be to design a PCB with a unified design environment in Altium Designer^®. That’s a trick question, it only takes one. But for many engineers, designing a PCB often involves learning multiple sets of software just to accomplish one final goal. And even then, there's no guarantee that a multi-tool chain approach will 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

The Real Costs of Failed Design Collaboration

The Real Costs of Failed Design Collaboration Our design processes have failed us. All over the world, engineers are struggling every day with the simple process of communication between electrical and mechanical design teams. What plagues us is not the lack of power in our tools, but their inability to adapt to what is an entirely different product design workflow than what was required a decade ago. Our design processes have failed us. All over the world, engineers are struggling every day Read Article

New PDN Analysis Extension Now Available for Altium Designer

New PDN Analysis Extension Now Available for Altium Designer Read about a new extension for Altium Designer^® that allows you to efficiently optimize your at design time. With digital designs continuing to increase in density and complexity, it’s more difficult and critical than ever to fully understand the impact of design decisions on your Power Distribution Network () voltage and current performance. Rather than treating issues as a post-design afterthought in a physical prototype, you need a way to Read Article

How to Automate Your Component Management Process

How to Automate Your Component Management Process How many times have you found yourself deep in a project, only to find that one of the main components is on backorder, or, worse yet, is in obsolescence? This happens to engineers every day, but it doesn't’ have to. Read to learn more about automating your component management process. How many times have you found yourself deep in a project, only to find that one of the main components is on backorder, or, worse yet, is in obsolescence? How Read Article

Reporting Now in On-Demand Licensing

Reporting Now in On-Demand Licensing You’ve been asking for greater visibility and reporting functionality for your Altium On-Demand Licenses, and we’re delivering. Read on to learn about the three new reasons to start using On-Demand Licensing. Three New Reasons to Start Using On-Demand Licensing Fellow engineers, you’ve been asking for greater visibility and reporting functionality for your Altium On-Demand Licenses, and we’re delivering. With the arrival of Altium Designer^®, we Read Article

The Worst Advice We’ve Heard About PCB Design

Really Bad PCB Design Advice to Not Follow At Altium Designer, we’ve been in the PCB design software business for over 30 years. In that time, we’ve seen a lot of innovations—and a lot of mistakes. It seems every engineer has some PCB design basics advice to offer on laying out a printed circuit board, and unfortunately not all of it is good. Here’s a roundup of some of the worst PCB design advice we’ve heard. Avoid Via in Pad At first glance, this seems like sound PCB design basics Read Article