Engineering News

Read the latest news and information for pcb design enineers.

Component Development best practices - Part 1 During the coming weeks, we’d like to post details about our PCB component development standards, practices and processes. Along the way, I’d like open discussion about how you develop libraries, and where do you see challenges. We’d like to pull everything together into more formal best practices and standards guide. With solder paste, a solder mask, printed circuit assembly, and PCB fabrication, there is so much to consider so let's dig in! Hi Read Article

Creative use of flexible tools A question came up on the forums today asking how to make a design rule in Altium Designer® to check for silkscreen clearance to the board outline. Knowing that there is no direct method to achieve this, I had to get creative. A question came up on the forums today asking how to make a design rule in Altium to check for silkscreen clearance to the board outline. Knowing that there is no direct method to achieve this, I had to take step back and Read Article

AltiumLive - this time it's personal! Altium product manager Rob Irwin shares some personal thoughts on AltiumLive and its significance to electronics design. As many of you know, Altium recently acquired Morfik, a developer of software tools used to create web applications. On the surface it’s a puzzling match up. Altium makes tools to design and develop electronic devices. Morfik makes tools to develop web stuff. Where’s the synergy? I must confess that at first I was struggling to Read Article

All you need to know about AltiumLive An introduction to AltiumLive and the cool new community applications that are available for you to use. AltiumLive is an online extension of your Altium Designer® software for PCB designs. It is a place where you can connect, engage and exchange values and ideas with the broader Altium Designer community. It’s also a mechanism that keeps you up to date with the latest device support, features, updates and online services. AltiumLive Forum The Read Article

AltiumLive - FAQs Your AltiumLive questions - answered! The following is a list of Frequently Asked Questions, the answers for which are all aimed at getting you up-and-running with AltiumLive. OK, I'll ask it. What is the underlying purpose of AltiumLive? The key objective of AltiumLive, through its Forums, BugCrunch and the recognition program, is community building. We want to have a community that is rich in knowledge and expertise, and full of members who are Read Article

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

New Features You’ll Only See in Altium Designer 16 We’ve packed many new features in Altium Designer®, allowing you to get your designs done faster than ever. Check out our top 3, and register now for a free webinar to see them all! It’s that time of the year again, and we’ve got a major update planned for Altium . Our focus has always been on providing you with the most productive and efficient design tool that allows you to tap into your true design potential. This release is no exception to Read Article

Enhanced Documentation Options in Altium Designer 15.1 We all know the importance of accurate and detailed documentation in the design process. Has your fabricator ever called with questions about design intent or missing documentation? The newest features being added in Altium Designer® are going to make your design to fabrication process even simpler and clearer with expanded documentation output and editing options. New Documentation Features in Altium 15.1 3D PDF Outputs 3D views of your PCB Read Article

5 (More) Productivity-Boosting Features in Altium Designer You Need to Start Using Now We’re back with another series of productivity-boosting features for you to take advantage of in Altium Designer®. If you missed us last week, check out our first blog post for the other 5 productivity enhancers we’ve covered. I’ve included some great time saving and workflow enhancement features in this article that will help to automate many of those tedious, repetitive tasks that we have to perform in our designs. Read on to learn more! Cross Read Article

5 Time-Saving Productivity Features in Altium Designer You Need to Be Using Now Are you getting the most efficiency out of your Altium Designer® workflow? Use these 5 time-saving features to enhance your PCB design productivity. I sat down to talk with some of our best and brightest at Altium Designer, those that have poured countless hours and effort into learning, using, and developing Altium Designer. Why? I wanted to extract the top 5 productivity features they use day in and day out that shave hours off of their design Read Article

Announcements: FREE TI WEBENCH® Altium Connector Extension I’m very pleased to announce the release of another great 3rd party extension for Altium Designer®, the WEBENCH® Altium Connector. The WEBENCH® Design Center and WEBENCH® Simulation Engine assist enormously with the development of power, lighting, filtering, clocking and sensing designs. Allowing you to generate, optimize and simulate designs, while making the necessary value-based tradeoffs to meet your design and supply chain requirements. The Read Article

How to use Schematic CAD Drawings for Cable Assemblies: Part 3 The long anticipated part 3 in Sainesh Solanki's Cable and Harness Design blog series is here! This installment continues the establishment of libraries with connector heads and crimp lugs, as well as how to model heat shrinks. We introduce some parameters too, which enable wire-to-crimp compatibility checks. Take a look! Creating Components Continued... There are two additional schematic symbols that can be added into your. The first is the Read Article

With humble thanks from the Altium team Altium Designer® was named the winner of UBM’s DesignVision Award for the most innovative PCB tools category at DesignCon. We'd like to say thank you! Hello everyone, As per usual at the end of every January, we loaded up the wagons and headed to Santa Clara for DesignCon to take our show on the road. As we made the annual pilgrimage this year, we were armed with a brand new trade show display, brand new graphics, a new release of Altium, and 18 Read Article

Are you Altium Designer Certified? At Altium, we endeavor to make our tools as simple to learn and as pain free to use as possible. But when time is money and you need to be up and running in a flash, or you want to refine your skills in Altium Designer® so you can wield it like a pro, reaching out for some additional training might be just what the doctor ordered. Since the start of this year, we've been rolling out a new and enhanced suite of training programs that include Read Article

Announcements: Techdocs - a new era for Altium’s technical documentation In conjunction with the release of Altium Designer®, Altium is pleased to herald the arrival of a new home for its technical documentation - techdocs.altium.com. This represents a significant milestone for Altium and kicks off the start of a campaign to ultimately get our documentation ‘house’ in order - and then some! It reflects our strong commitment to a singular overriding quest, and that is to provide high-quality, highly-relevant and Read Article

Ruminating Rigid Flex - Part 4 Leading up to now, we've looked at rigid-flex circuit materials, fabrication, and some aspects of design. In this blog post, I want to show a handful of important rules to follow when routing copper for flex and rigid-flex circuits, that not only increase the fabrication yield but also the reliability and lifespan of the flex circuit. Dos and Don’ts of Flex circuit copper It’s easy to look at the problems of layer stack design, parts placement Read Article

AdminConsole - creating a new way to manage your relationship with Altium When I was first presented with the idea of creating a marketplace where electronic designers could trade and reuse hardware and software designs, scripts or tutorials, and collaborate and exchange their valuable IP, it sounded like a pretty daunting task and a little overwhelming. When I was first presented with the idea of creating a marketplace where electronic designers could trade and reuse hardware and software designs, scripts or tutorials Read Article