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Weekly Digest: Optimize Your Documentation and Workflow

Weekly Digest: Optimize Your Documentation and Workflow Get the latest information from Industry Experts, Altium webinars, videos and more to help you maximize your productivity. We know it takes a lot to go from design to assembly and fabrication so we’re working on providing the most in-depth information to help designers with the most challenging questions. Let us know what questions keep you up at night or consider joining our expert team of writers. New Articles on the PCB Design Blog Check out Read Article

Selecting FR4 Alternative Materials for Multilayer PCB Substrates

Selecting FR4 Alternatives of PCB Substrate Materials for Multilayer Boards You don’t have to settle for FR4 for your next multilayer PCB. Read more on selecting other PCB substrate materials. Read Article

All About CMOS, ECL, and TTL Propagation Delay in High Speed PCBs

All About CMOS, ECL, and TTL Propagation Delay in High Speed PCBs I still remember the 386 hand-me-down computer my parents gave me as a kid. It was useful for writing simple QBasic programs and spending hours playing computer games, but the computers of today leave my old 386 PC in the dust. With further development of computer architecture and the demands of more modern devices, the propagation delay in logic circuits becomes an important design parameter in a number of systems. In particular, TTL propagation Read Article

Flexible Circuit Stiffener Options

Flexible Circuit PCB Stiffener Options It is common for a flexible circuit stack-up to include a PCB stiffener, read about the different PCB stiffener options here. Read Article

Surfing 3D PCB CAD from Inside the Grey Tsunami

Surfing 3D PCB CAD from Inside the Grey Tsunami APEX San Diego – Riding my long skateboard through the streets of the Gaslamp I must have been quite a sight in my suit and tie. Fresh off the IPC APEX show floor, I was carving turns through traffic, heading back to my hotel after spending several hours discussing the positive wave of 3D PCB CAD with some industry colleagues. Suddenly, I heard two guys laugh and shout at me from the crowded street corner: “Hey, you’re too old to be ridin’ a Read Article

Project Management Tools

Project Management Tools My first opportunity to use a project management technique was the Gantt Chart as part of my Engineering Senior Project while in college. At that time, it was all manual. Today, numerous software packages offer it along with other project visibility techniques (Figure 1): Gantt Chart Pert Chart Critical Path Analysis Affinity Diagrams Gap Analysis TimeLine Figure 1. Some of the visualization tools used for project management [1]. No matter what Read Article

Team Development for PCB Designers

Team Development for PCB Designers There Are Lots of I’s in The Word Team The old adage is there is no “i” in the word team. But, in reality, there are a lot of “I’s”—interface, interaction, intercommunication and integration to name a few. In today’s global supply chain (I use the acronym GSC) economy, product development rarely, if ever, rests with just a handful of individuals or even a handful of companies. In the highly competitive electronics market sector, there are Read Article

Rigid Outer-Layers to Reduce Cost

Rigid Outer-Layers to Reduce Cost Why is a 4-layer Rigid Flex Less Expensive than 3-layer Rigid Flex? Designing flex and rigid-flex can be tricky. Not only do you need to design for a product that will bend, fold and flex, you are working with different materials and fabrication processes. Plusm it is difficult to clearly communicate how the part should flex in final application. Typically, the goal is to use the most cost-effective stack up that meets both your electrical and Read Article

Flattening Your Workflow: A Guide to “Flat” Style Project Management

Flattening Your Workflow: A Guide to “Flat” Style Project Management As flat organizations become more popular so do the methods and processes that come along with them. This blog discusses not the flat organizational structure itself but how a flat organization functions within the project management arena. The principles of project management learned from a flat organization can be adopted in the flattest companies to the most hierarchically structured organizations. Being “flat” is hip but why should I do it Read Article

Weekly Digest: Dan Beeker Podcast and more

Weekly Digest: Dan Beeker Podcast and more This week we have a new podcast and a special promotion going on as well. Read on for details. The OnTrack Podcast with Judy Warner What does it mean, it’s all about the space? Tune in to hear AltiumLive speaker Dan Beeker talk about his keynote topic, “ It’s all about the space”. A student of Rick Hartley and Ralph Morrison, Dan is eager to share the behaviors and nuances of the electromagnetic field. Listen in to learn. You can also listen to Read Article

Deep Space Gas Stations Prepare for In-Space Market

Deep Space Gas Stations Prepare for In-Space Market One of our favorite things to do here at Altium is to support entrepreneurs and their innovative startup companies by equipping them with our PCB design tools. Orbit Fab is one such company. In this article, partners Daniel Faber and Jeremy Schiel share their vision for the future of space and the critical need for satellite fueling stations. With help from our partners at Bolt, a technology accelerator, Orbit Fab has developed a preliminary Read Article

Go to Market Fast With Bolt’s In-House Engineering Team

Go to Market Fast With Bolt’s In-House Engineering Team and Accelerators Recently we had the opportunity to get to know Tyler Mincey, the VP of Engineering at Bolt which is a hardware and software accelerator with offices in San Francisco and Boston. In this interview, we talk with Mincey about his passion for engineering and the incredible work being accomplished at Bolt. Their unique model of providing venture capital along with an in-house engineering team continues to fuel a growing portfolio. Bolt is part of Read Article

Weekly Digest: Problem Solving and Price in PCB Design

Weekly Digest: Problem Solving and Price in PCB Design Get the latest information from Industry Experts, Altium webinars, videos and more. Read about problem-solving methodology from expert Happy Holden, and get up to speed on cost vs. price with Kella Knack in her article about the economics of PCB design. Read on for the weekly digest and let us know what you’d like to see more of in the comments below. Expert Articles on the PCB Design Blog Check out the new content on the blog this week: Problem Read Article

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Eliminate Mistakes in Your Schematics with Electronic Rule Checking

Eliminate Mistakes in Your Schematics with Electronic Rule Checking In times of rising design complexity and shortened timelines, it’s more and more for mistakes to sneak through in the schematic that can translate to the printed circuit board. Read on to find out how to easily identify and eliminate issues in your schematic with the Electronic Rule Checking your PCB in Altium Designer^®. Many designers and companies put all their efforts in having a proper PCB layout and, nowadays, checking in real time the Read Article

Design Release Management

ECAD Design Data Release Management There is no question that many of the our recent technological advancements, have been in fact within the communication realm! From the internet, cell phones, satellites, Facebook, and so on, it’s all been geared for us to easily communicate and collaborate. However, with all this technology in the palm of our hands, many companies today still struggle communicating their ECAD data releases. Whether it is to internally collaborate with peers and Read Article