High-Speed PCB Design

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High-Speed PCB Design

Gigabit Ethernet guidelines

Gigabit Ethernet 101: Basics to Implementation This guide is what you are looking for if you’re ready to add ethernet, especially gigabit ethernet, to your electronic circuit design and need to get up to speed. Read Article

How to Use Thermocouples in Your Next Project

How to Use Thermocouples in Your Next Project Thermocouples are the final sensor type in a series where we look at all the main types of temperature sensors you might use in an electronics project. In this series, we have looked at the various ways to implement different temperature sensors in your project. At the end of the series, we’ll be putting the sensors and implementations in a head to head competition using real-world conditions. Through this real-world testing, will gain a better Read Article

Include IC Pin Numbers in Your Altium Designer Parts Data

Include IC Pin Numbers in Your Altium Designer Parts Data When you create components, you’ll really be creating 3 different CAD models: a schematic symbol, PCB footprint, and 3D model. Integrated circuits need multiple pieces of information, including courtyards, IC pin numbers, designators, and electrical simulation models to be most effective in your PCB design and analysis tools. If you’re working with most CAD tools, you won’t have the features you need to perform all of these tasks. Enter Altium Read Article

PCB Coplanar Waveguide Calculator

PCB Coplanar Waveguide Calculator RF PCBs can be complex boards that need careful interconnect design and layout. If you’re designing an RF PCB for microwave or higher frequencies, controlled impedance routing should be top of mind to ensure signal integrity. You can choose from many routing styles, but whichever routing style you choose, it should provide isolation against noise and crosstalk. A coplanar waveguide routing style is an excellent choice for RF PCBs as they can be Read Article

PCIe 5.0 signal integrity NVMe card

PCIe 5.0 Signal Integrity and Analysis PCIe 5.0 signal integrity follows many trends from other high speed signaling standards. Learn more about this high speed signaling standard in this article. Read Article

Adding Arduino Boards to Your Integrated Components Libraries

Adding Arduino Boards to Your Integrated Components Libraries An Arduino board is a great way to include standard functionality in your next PCB. If you want to use an Arduino board in your PCB design software, you’ll need to include Arduino boards as part of your component libraries. This allows you to incorporate Arduino boards into your electronics schematics, layouts, and bills of materials. You can use Arduino boards as the backbone for your next product, or as part of a larger multi-board system Read Article

PCB design for DDR5 vs DDR6

DDR5 vs. DDR6: Here's What to Expect in RAM Modules What can designers expect in DDR5 vs DDR6 RAM? Here’s what you can expect for your next memory device. Read Article

Crosstalk or Coupling

Crosstalk or Coupling The words crosstalk and coupling are used to describe the injection of electromagnetic energy from one transmission line to another running nearby. In printed circuit boards crosstalk is usually two traces running side by side in the same layer or one over the top of the other in adjacent layers. This coupled energy appears as noise on the victim trace and can cause malfunctions if the amplitude is too large. Learn how this noise is transferred Read Article

Transmission Line Termination Techniques in High-Speed Design

Transmission Line Termination Techniques in High-Speed Design A transmission line is a pair of conductors used to deliver energy in the form of an electromagnetic field. Most of us are familiar with the wires that lead to our houses delivering the power needed to operate our lights and appliances. In the context of PCB design, it is a signal in a signal layer on top of a plane or between two planes. TRANSMISSION LINE TERMINATION TECHNIQUES FOR PCB DESIGN The purpose of this section is to explain what Read Article

IEEE EPEPS conference roundup

IEEE EPEPS 2020 Roundup: Get Ready for Advanced CAD and Modeling Techniques SI/PI engineers and layout engineers presented their research work at this year’s IEEE EPEPS conference. Read Article

Clone and Modify an Arduino Mega Schematic in Altium Designer

Clone and Modify an Arduino Mega PCB Schematic in Altium Designer There are many different Arduino boards available for development and prototyping, and you might consider designing your own Arduino PCB schematic. If you want to modify an Arduino Mega schematic, you need design software that lets you easily build around an Arduino board and quickly add functionality. Your design software should make it easy to use any Arduino mega pinout board, like the Arduino Uno PCB schematic, Mega, Zero, or another model Read Article

The Best PCB Layout & Design Software for Your Needs

The Best PCB Layout & Design Software for Your Needs When designing circuit boards, there are some functions that your PCB (printed circuit board) design tools must excel at without exception. These include the basic functions of schematic design, schematic capture, placing parts, and routing traces. There are other important functions you won’t find in free PCB design software. These include bill of materials compilation, generation of Gerbers and other deliverables, and data management functions Read Article

Altium Designer’s Board Layout Software

Altium Designer’s Board Layout Software Handling the ever-growing complexities of today’s routing demands requires board layout software that can keep up. When yesterday’s tools are no longer getting the job done, get back on the road of productive design today with the most powerful easy draw PCB design layout software. When you need powerful board layout software, you need to easily complete the following tasks: Visually and easily manage your PCB copper pours Peace of mind PCB Read Article

Why Altium Designer Will Give You Better Results Over OrCAD

Why Altium Designer Will Give You Better Results Over OrCAD A free download of software and a fancy demo can make PCB design tools seem very attractive. You owe it to yourself to do your research before you purchase so that you get the design features you need for success. Altium Designer delivers on its promise of an easy-to-learn, professional set of PCB design tools. When you switch to Altium Designer, you’ll have the same set of design features you’ll find in OrCAD and much more. You can also Read Article

Design Your PCB Stackup with Altium Designer

Design Your PCB Stackup with Altium Designer Your PCB stackup is the backbone of your circuit board, directly impacting how signals behave. Signals rely on internal plane layers as a reference, and with the right layer stack, signal routing becomes much more efficient. Beyond just organizing your board layers, selecting the right materials in your stackup is crucial for handling power, impedance, and signal integrity calculations. For modern designs, a four-layer board is the baseline, but Read Article

Auto-Interactive Routing Gives You More Control

The Altium PCB Auto Router: The Best PCB Automated Routing Tool Routing traces on your printed circuit board is that critical step during layout that creates the connectivity and functionality your board needs. It can also be time-consuming if your design autoroute software doesn’t contain the right routing tools. Your PCB design software should include high-precision routing tools that are designed to automate many portions of the routing process. Advanced PCBs require the best PCB auto-router, and your Read Article

Easily Create Your PCB Solder Mask in Altium Designer

Easily Create Your PCB Solder Mask Layer in Altium Designer You’ve just finished the electrical layout of your board and now you are working through the final steps to prepare for PCB manufacturing and assembly. What steps do you need to take to get your board ready for production? Aside from generating deliverables like Gerber files, a bill of materials, drill files, silkscreen, and PCB assembly instructions, you’ll need to define the solder mask (sometimes called solder stop mask or solder resist) on Read Article