Getting Started

Just getting started with PCB Design and Altium? These resources help you get acquainted with all you need to know!

PCB Design Output Files

Overview of PCB Design Output Files Make sure you know which PCB design output files your fabricator and assembler need to ensure they can build your PCBA. Read Article

Altium Designer Getting Started User Guide

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

PCB Design Workflow

Design Rule Checking in the PCB Design Workflow Design rule checking occurs at multiple points in the PCB design workflow. Make sure you know which design rules you need to define and when to run manual design rule checks in your PCB design software. Read Article

PCB Workflow Management

Overview of PCB Workflow Management We provide an overview of PCB workflow management for on-premises and remote teams. Use Altium Designer and Nexus to manage your PCB design workflow and engineering teams. Read Article

Learn PCB Design

Considering Electronics as a Career? You'll Need to Learn PCB Design! Students who want to learn PCB design can find free resources from Altium Education, the industry’s leading educational platform for college students to learn PCB design. Read Article

PCB Design Course

Why PCB Design Courses Are Essential in an Engineering Curriculum A PCB design course nicely fits into standard electrical engineering curricula and complements existing coursework with systems-level design concepts. Read Article

PCB design basics

PCB Design Basics for New Designers New designers should follow this guide to help them get started with a new project. Read Article

Meeting Standards: IPC 6012 Class 3 Annular Ring

Meeting Standards: IPC 6012 Class 3 Annular Ring Take a look at the above image of a PCB layout, specifically the vias and drill holes poking through the silkscreen. It's quite clear that some of these vias are off-center, meaning the drill hit that created these vias was not dead-center in the receiving land. This leaves behind an annular ring, something which might be considered a defect in certain IPC product classes. Under the IPC standards for rigid boards, we have several possible Read Article

what is signal integrity

What is Signal Integrity? Learn about the basics of signal integrity and how you can ensure your PCB layout complies with best practices for signal integrity. Read Article

PCB component creation

What is PCB Component Creation? Learn more about PCB component creation and how you can easily create components with the best CAD features in Altium Designer. Read Article

Flexible Circuits: Getting Started

Flexible Circuits: Getting Started with a Flex Circuit Design Guide Expert Tara Dunn tackles in detail the key benefits driving designers to use flexible materials. Read now to learn more. Read Article

Pandemic PCB Prototyping: Building Electronics From Your Living Room

Pandemic PCB Prototyping: Building Electronics From Your Living Room It feels like everyone is writing an article these days about how they’re managing (or not managing) with stay-at-home orders due to COVID-19 restrictions. At the time of writing, California (where I am based) has the highest number of cases over any other state in the United States. To combat the pandemic, most non-essential businesses have been closed or open in a limited fashion. This means that folks who are able to work from home (e.g Read Article

Design data management system

The Search for the All-in-One Design Data Management System In this article we discuss the pain points of using a single design data management system over linking many together. Read Article

A Guide to Challenging Projects

A Guide to Challenging Projects Starting a project? Here's an expert advise from Mark Harris to get you through challenging design projects. Read this blog and see if this method will work for you. Read Article

What is PCB design?

What is a PCB? What does "PCB" mean? A printed circuit board (PCB) is an electronic assembly that uses copper conductors to create electrical connections between components. Printed circuit boards provide mechanical support for electronic components so that a device can be mounted in an enclosure. A printed circuit board design must include a specific set of steps that aligns with the manufacturing process, integrated circuit packaging, and the structure of the Read Article

Automated Mirroring Between Concord Pro and Your Git Server

Automated Mirroring Between Concord Pro and Your Git Server You can create a Git server mirror of your Altium Concord Pro server. This gives you a simple way to create a backup for projects from an on-premises Concord Pro instance. Read Article

Temperature Sensor Project: Intro

Temperature Sensor Project: Intro In this project we will build a range of PCBs which will cover all the temperature sensor types and circuits to implement them. Read Article