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Browse the latest resources and information from industry experts on PCB Design.

5 Noteworthy Women in PCB Design Women in technology is a hot topic, especially how to get more women involved in technology-related fields. What I find most interesting about this subject is what motivates people to pursue a career in technology in the first place. In general, there are a lot of men in this field and, as a woman in tech myself, I think attracting new people to the industry is always positive. I encourage people to pursue careers in technology, no matter their Read Article

Level Up Your Design Skills - Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide We are happy to announce the release of the new Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide. Whether you are new to Altium Designer or you want to brush up on some topics, the Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide will take you from a beginner to a master in PCB design. This is only the beginning! This guide will be updated with new information based on user feedback. Let’s first go over the contents of the guide. Read Article

Advanced Design Techniques with Altium Designer In this article, we’ll learn how to use Altium Designer^® to implement extra functionalities that are not available by default. We’ll discover a powerful aspect of Altium Designer that when mastered can bring your design skills to a higher level. In this article, we’ll discuss how to implement a script to perform design verification for you. We will learn: How to create rules to verify some design requirements. To verify those rules using a script Read Article

Everything You Need to Know About Ferrite Beads As noted in my previous blog regarding PDS design, the whole power supply conundrum is one that has been plagued over the years with a number of erroneous rules-of-thumb; “black magic” design rules and confusion as to what does or doesn’t work. One of the most controversial topic areas focuses on the use of ferrite beads as a means of controlling and containing EMI. There is conflicting information concerning the use of ferrite beads and it is Read Article

Know the Bandwidth This article relates to both printed electronics and PCBs. I acquired my bandwidth design techniques working in PCB design, and later applied the same principles to my printed electronics design. In this article, I’ll explain my knowledge of bandwidth, and how I was able to apply it to both PCBs and printed electronics. Before going into details on bandwidth, I think it’s worth revisiting what we in electronics mean by the term “signal”. For me Read Article

Exploring Arduino is Now Expanded and Updated by Jeremy Blum The Altium OnTrack Podcast with Judy Warner welcomes one of the Hardware design community’s brightest stars, Jeremy Blum. Jeremy recently released a new version of his book that is a heavily expanded and updated edition. Exploring Arduino, has helped people around the world and now you can get a completely up-to-date version, which you can buy now. Jeremy is a two-time AltiumLive keynote speaker and has also been featured on this podcast twice Read Article

Patrick Züger Talks About the Altium Designer 20 New and Exciting Features Patrick Züger from GPV Switzerland, a massive fabricator and assembly facility across Europe and China, delivered a great talk at AltiumLive in Europe. He shares his feedback and design process with and as an Altium Designer^® Beta User. We discuss his initial impressions of Altium Designer 20. Listen to the Podcast: Download this episode (right click and save) Watch the video: Show Highlights: As a CID+ Hardware/PCB designer in a global EMS Read Article

High Performance Sub 1GHz RF Project This week, I’m building a high-performance sub-1GHz transceiver that I want to use as a standalone Internet of Things node using the ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller. As with my other projects, this project is open source and published on GitHub for you to use as the basis of your own design, or to use as-is. The RF schematic and layout are production proven, as are the microcontroller schematic and all footprints on the board. However, do keep in Read Article

PDN Analyzer Quick Start on a Motor Driver PCB Previously, I posted about designing a simple DC brushed motor controller using a single IC. While it’s a relatively simple board, it will still be transferring a maximum of 4 amps of current if both motors are running at the driver’s full rated current per channel. For a board as simple as this, you could simply look at the trace length and width and use an online calculator (or a little math) to figure out current densities on the traces and Read Article

What is the Return Current Path in a PCB? Do you know how to determine the return current path in this PCB layout? One of the fundamental aspects of any circuit diagram is the return current path. In a circuit diagram and a schematic diagram, the path that electric current follows to return to the low potential side of a power source should be obvious, but it may not be so obvious in a PCB. To quote the great Eric Bogatin at his PCB West 2019 presentation, the distinction between a Read Article

How to Use Altium Designer Most Efficiently One of the things I really love about Altium Designer^® is how many shortcuts there are, and how customisable they are. A while ago in my database library’s chat channel, there was a really good discussion about shortcuts and how each of us customises his or her menus to be able to draw schematics and layout boards as quickly and efficiently as possible. Many of us use and love similar shortcuts, but there were enough interesting use cases that I Read Article

Injectsense Real-Time Eye Pressure Monitoring A prototype of Injectsense's wireless silicon sensor module next to a grain of rice and a quarter (Image source: Injectsense) A little over a year ago, I noticed that things sometimes got a little blurry while I was looking at my computer screen. My cousin Graham in England has macular degeneration, which has left him almost totally without sight. I have to admit that the thought this might happen to me was lurking in the back of my mind, so I Read Article

OnTrack Newsletter: Music & Electronics, MCU Selection, Brain Food - October 2019 OnTrack Newsletter October 2019 VOL. 3 No 5 PianoArc: A Circular Piano Fit for Princes and Mega Stars Earlier this year I met a fascinating designer at the San Diego Altium^® Users Group. Dave Starkey told me about a circular piano he and his partners had designed and built called the Pianoarc. In this interview, learn more about Starkey’s background and how he came to co-create this unique instrument that now graces a Middle Eastern Palace and is Read Article

Getting Connected: Altium’s User Community Forums The Altium design environment is a complex and sophisticated set of software tools. Not surprisingly, becoming proficient with these tools will take some time, and you’ll need to practice every step of the design process from beginning to end. So what happens if you get stuck along the way? The online documentation includes a “Getting Started” tutorial and a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, and Altium also has a customer support system to Read Article

Design Report Card One of my earlier BLOGs talked about PWB Cost Drivers. What is required for the PWB Value Delivery Chain is a method of predicting the cost of fabrication for the PCB substrate, as well as the cost of assembly and assembly testing. With these tools and the wiring density metrics, tradeoffs can be performed early in the product's life. Many call this Design for Manufacturing and Assembly, I call it the DFM Report Cards because that’s what its Read Article

PianoArc: A Circular Piano Fit for Princes and Mega Stars Earlier this year I met a fascinating designer at the San Diego Altium Users Group. Dave Starkey told me about a circular piano he and his partners had designed and built called the Pianoarc. In this interview, learn more about Starkey’s background and how he came to co-create this unique instrument that now graces a Middle Eastern Palace and is played around the world by PianoArc visionary Brockett Parsons, keyboardist for Lady Gaga. Dave Read Article

Get Inspired by Major League Hacking with Jonathan Gottfried Jonathan Gottfried is co-founder of Major League Hacking, or MLH, the official student hackathon league. Major League Hacking’s vision is to inspire students worldwide from both traditional and non-traditional backgrounds. They’ve influenced new generations of engineers; from software, hardware, and mechanical disciplines in the events they have thrown worldwide. Learn more about Jonathan and his inspiring work at MLH. Listen to the Podcast Read Article