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The Worst Advice We’ve Heard About PCB Design

Really Bad PCB Design Advice to Not Follow At Altium Designer, we’ve been in the PCB design software business for over 30 years. In that time, we’ve seen a lot of innovations—and a lot of mistakes. It seems every engineer has some PCB design basics advice to offer on laying out a printed circuit board, and unfortunately not all of it is good. Here’s a roundup of some of the worst PCB design advice we’ve heard. Avoid Via in Pad At first glance, this seems like sound PCB design basics Read Article

Automating PCB Design Environments: How to Simplify and Automate Your PCB ECO Workflow Shuffling different programs for your schematic and PCB layout design changes costs both time and money. Altium Designer^® tackles this issue with a unified design system that automatically transfers data between schematic and PCB using component links. Read on to learn how component links are increasing productivity by automating ECO procedures. Transferring data from schematic to PCB, or vice versa, is traditionally a task stretched across Read Article

The Biggest PCB Manufacturing Trends We’ve Seen This Year The field of new technology in PCB manufacturing is constantly evolving. Technology is improving, new innovations are being made, and better manufacturing methods are being developed. Methods that were commonplace yesterday may today be obsolete. How can you keep up? Well, here are some of the PCB manufacturing trends we’ve seen in 2016 so far. The field of PCB Manufacturing is constantly evolving. Technology is improving, new assembly Read Article

The Peak of Engineering Efficiency is Now Available in Altium Designer 17

The Peak of Engineering Efficiency and PCB Design Technology is Now Available in Altium 17 The engineering mentality is one focused on efficiency and creativity. And whether you’re designing electronics in today’s autonomous vehicles or connected devices, the careful balance between art and science walks a very thin line. Sooner or later, you’re bound to hit a roadblock. Not in your ideas, but in executing those ideas efficiently in your tools

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7 Common Misconceptions about PCB Design After years of PCB assembly, you probably know about a decoupling capacitor, a solder mask, and schematic symbols like the back of your hand. Right? Brace yourself. We’re about to challenge everything you ever thought you knew about printed circuit board design. Well, maybe not everything. Seven things. Everyone holds to certain misconceptions when designing: things they’ve been taught, things they heard, things they learned firsthand (right Read Article

How to Easily Import Your Designs to Your Favorite Design Tools One task that has always proven difficult is moving electronic product designs from one printed board design software environment to another. Whether you’ve changed PCB design tools or acquired designs from another company, there are a number of challenges involved in moving a project from one PCB software platform to another, while maintaining design consistency. It’s a difficult and time-consuming process, but it has to be done. Say a PCB has Read Article

How to Automate Your Design Review Process

How to Automate Your Design Review Workflow and Process Your typical design review workflow can be filled with endless hurdles, errors, and time-consuming processes without the right tools, but it doesn’t have to be. Learn how you can automate your design review and comparison process in Altium Designer^®. The increasing demand for smaller, more capable electronics has been a major driving factor behind the development of more complex, densely packed PCBs. Although EDA software is regularly updated to Read Article

Personalizing Your Altium Designer Experience The “one-stop-shop” approach to electronics design provides engineers with all the PCB software they need, all at their fingertips. However, since there’s so much going on in the Altium Designer^® package, it can get overwhelming. How can you manage this plethora of functionality effectively? Modern PCB design software employ an ever growing collection of features and functionality. One of the leaders in this area is Altium, which provides users Read Article

How to Simplify Your Routing with Pin Swapping Optimal component placement goes a long way towards minimizing crossover connection lines. However, crossovers can never be completely avoided. Learn how you can simplify your routing process and avoid wasting time with crossover connections. Optimal component placement goes a long way towards minimizing crossover connection lines. However, crossovers can never be completely avoided. A large number of crossover connections make routing a PCB Read Article

Draftsman: Make the Software Do the Documentation You’ve routed your last route. Stitched your last via. Poured your last pour. You’re finally done with that board — time to celebrate! (Or at least move on to the next project.) Hang on! You’re not done yet. There’s still the documentation to be done – the fab drawings, the assembly CAD drawings, everything the fab shop needs to turn your carefully crafted work of art into a real electronic product. Unfortunately, the tools you have access to in Read Article

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