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Power Nets Management: Circuit Board Best Practices Power Nets Management: Circuit Board Best Practices A recent BugCrunch item (Power input vs output) raised the long standing issue of power management in Altium Designer®. PCB fabrication can be a complicated process when considering all of the items that go into it. Between the vias, solder mask, and solder, things can get messy. To ensure we are all on the same page, I have some opinions on PCB assembly before work gets started. As always, I will be very interested in your thoughts and comments Read Article
The Hateful Five of PCB Manufacturing The Hateful Five of PCB Manufacturing You just completed your last design review, got that needed approval signature, and the finish line has never been closer, or so you think. Even after your components are sourced and your board is laid out perfectly, the biggest challenge is yet to come - ensuring that all those months of design and team effort don’t go to waste when it comes time to communicate design intent to manufacturing. But how do you navigate this stage of your post 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
DC Analysis of a PDN: Essential for the Digital Designer DC Analysis of a PDN: Essential for the Digital Designer As PCBs become increasingly miniaturized, engineers are commonly faced with incorporating multiple power planes on the same layer. While this design practice introduces coupling issues, the real question is whether they can be resolved without a dedicated PDN analysis tool. Read on to find out. DC Analysis of a PDN: Essential for the Digital Designer Is there enough copper? DC analysis of a power delivery network (“PDN”), commonly referred to as Read Article
How to Make History, One Rocket at a Time How to Make History, One Rocket at a Time As we celebrate SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft making history and achieving what was widely discounted as impossible just few years ago, we know that all that effort didn't come from a void, but rather from hard work, innovation, dedication, and of course utilizing the right tools to manage all the phases of their designs from the various disciplines. As my old man used to say - if you fail, keep trying until you make history (maybe not his exact Read Article
Altium Designer 16.1 Now Available Altium Designer 16.1 Now Available Altium ® 16.1 is now available to all Altium Subscription customers. Altium Designer® 16.1 Now Available ​Altium 16.1 is here, and it’s better than ever! This release is available now as a free upgrade to all Altium Subscription customers and can be downloaded on the Altium Downloads page. Not an Altium Subscription customer? Contact our support team to upgrade. In this release, we’ve packed in powerful technology to automate your documentation Read Article
Battling Your Power and Data Transmission Demands Battling Your Power and Data Transmission Demands As an industry, we have approached the increased power consumption and data transmission requirements differently depending on the application of our devices and peripherals. Wouldn’t it be great to have a simplified solution that everyone could use? Do your designs invariably require more components as you struggle to maintain an elegant design? As we seek to expand the capabilities of our devices, the arduous task of keeping our board designs Read Article
The Top Two File Format Alternatives to Replace Gerber RS-274X The Top Two File Format Alternatives to Replace Gerber RS-274X Despite its popular use in about 90% of all PCBs designed worldwide, Gerber RS-274X has several practical limitations that can lead to a number of problems during your fabrication process. What are the alternatives to this file format? Read on to find out. Meta Description: Although Gerber RS-274X is used in about 90% of all PCB designs it has several practical limitations. Gerber RS-274X is the de facto standard for PCB design software, but that Read Article
6 PCB Design Stats to Make You Look Smart around the Water cooler 6 PCB Design Stats to Make You Look Smart around the Water cooler By nature of your role on a team that designs and manufactures printed circuit boards, there’s a lot you need to know about PCB design, from rules of thumb to design for manufacturability to the fabrication process, and more. But how much do you really know about PCBs and how they’re used? Read on... By nature of your role on a team that designs and manufactures printed circuit boards, there’s a lot you need to know about PCB design, from rules Read Article
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