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PCB Design

Design Tip: Using the PCB Release View to Automate Output Job File Processing

Automate Output Job File Processing with PCB Release View in Altium Deisgner There are many ways to peel an orange - so to speak - and some are better than others. And when it comes to generating fabrication and assembly outputs from your designs this adage holds true. In this PCB design tip, FAE Dave Cousineau describes a re-usable, highly effective way of managing output jobs using the PCB design release capability of Altium Designer^®. Using Output Job files to define and store the necessary documentation needs for any Read Article

How Many Interfaces Does It Take to Complete a PCB Design?

PCB Design Environment Migration: 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

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

Altium Vault 2.5 Now Available

Altium Vault 2.5 Now Available We’re excited to announce the release of Altium Vault^® 2.5, with a number of new features for component management, data management, project collaboration, and infrastructure management. Read on to explore all of the new features! We’re excited to announce the release of Altium 2.5, available now exclusively for all Altium Subscription customers. Altium 2.5 gives you more precise control over your data management process, with a number of new Read Article

Enhanced Documentation Options in Altium Designer 15.1

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

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

5 PCB Designer 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 who 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

Collaborative Design Part 4: True ECAD/MCAD Collaboration with IDX

Collaborative Design Part 4: True ECAD/MCAD Collaboration with IDX True ECAD MCAD collaboration is more than just preserving details when moving between design environments. Visibility into design changes, comparing and merging capabilities, revision tracking and commenting are all key elements of collaborative design as well. In the final part of this blog series, I look at how IDX might be the best solution yet. In the last part of this blog series, I dove into ECAD MCAD collaboration market, and why it’s so Read Article

Open Source OLED Watch

Open Source OLED Watch It's a great time to be an engineer and a designer. In keeping with the theme of Petr Tosovsky's Open Source Projects in our Altium Designer blog, we found another Open Source Hardware (OSHW) project which was so cool we wanted to share it with the community. In this blog, Ben Jordan interviews 4th year computer engineering student Jared Sanson about his awesome OLED watch (smart watch), which he designed the electronics for in Altium Designer^® Read Article

Announcements: Altium Vault 2.0

Announcements: Altium Vault 2.0 We’re very pleased to announce the release of Altium Vault^® 2.0. This release represents a big step forward for our collaboration and ECAD data management product family. Considerable effort has been placed on streamlining the experience as much as possible to make daily work with it more efficient and productive. Integrated SVN services with the . Design repositories can be hosted by server itself, using the to manage access control and Read Article

Announcements: FREE TI WEBENCH® Altium Connector Extension

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

Power nets management - take 2

Power nets management - take 2 My recent blog post about Power nets management attracted a large number of very interesting and very informative comments. It has been heart warming, for me, to see so many people getting involved in the discussion. All these contributions have helped me appreciate how vast and intricate the domain of power management can be. My recent blog post about Power nets management attracted a large number of very interesting and very informative Read Article

Open Source Hardware & PCB Projects in Altium Designer

Open Source Hardware & PCB Projects in Altium Designer Article translated by Google, and edited in English by Ben Jordan. More and more engineers and PCB designers are getting involved in the rising tide of open source hardware projects. There are some really cool ones out there, and in this blog, FAE and consultant Petr Tošovský from Retry S.R.O. in Czech Republic highlights a few that caught his eye, and I ask the important question at the end - so read and answer with your thoughts! When you’re Read Article

Reducing Metastability in FPGA Designs

Reducing Metastability in FPGA Designs Here, we take a look at the concept of metastability in regards to digital circuits – and therefore FPGA designs – and how its 'appearance' can be greatly reduced simply by adhering to proven design principles that mitigate its effect. Metastability! You could be forgiven for thinking this might be related to the integrity of some futuristic containment vessel, or force-field: "The metastability of the warp drive's flux triangulator and cryonic Read Article

How to use Schematic CAD Drawings for Cable Assemblies: Part 3

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. You can access part 2 here, but if you're all caught up, read on! Creating Components Continued... Two additional schematic symbols can be Read Article

With humble thanks from the Altium team

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?

PCB Design Certifications: 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