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PCB Design

Best Software for PCB Design and Manufacturability (DFM) Guidelines

Best Software for PCB Design and Manufacturability (DFM) Guidelines Getting your circuit board to manufacturing requires following certain manufacturability guidelines. Once you gain an understanding of DFM standards, you will be in a much better position to design your circuit boards to meet DFM expectations. As a PCB designer laying out a circuit board, you’ll find yourself having to manage these guidelines and standards to get your board through the manufacturing and assembly process. Altium Designer makes Read Article

Altium Rigid-flex Guidebook: Your Complete Design Guide

Flex and Rigid-Flex PCB Design Guidelines and Assembly in Altium Designer Many electronic devices don’t live on a single printed circuit board. Flex and rigid-flex PCBs are used to link multiple rigid PCBs together into a single unit. This allows printed circuit designers to customize their board to odd enclosures, design motion into new devices, and provides unique form factors that are not possible with rigid boards. Many other common devices are shrinking, and the PCBs that power them are following suit. If you’re Read Article

The Best Schematic Design Program for PCBs

The Best Schematic CAD Software for PCBs PCB design begins with a schematic, where you turn your design ideas into working circuits. When you use the right schematic design editor program to create your circuit boards, you can design and simulate your board in a single program. Once you use integrated schematic capture, you can start your circuit board layout and create real circuit boards. Altium Designer is widely considered the best schematic software in this regard and gives you all Read Article

How to Build a Circuit Board With Altium’s PCB Design Software

How Are Circuit Boards Made With Altium Designer Your printed circuit board (PCB) design might be designed to work correctly, but you also need to make sure it can actually be manufactured. Although a PCB manufacturer will fabricate and assemble your circuit boards for you, making sure your designs are manufacturable is about encoding DFM specifications in your design rules. With the rule-driven design features of Altium Designer, you can encode DFM specs into your PCB’s design rules; this Read Article

1:44 Look No Further than Altium Designer for the Best PCB Design Software When it’s time to buy new PCB design software, you only want to buy the best of the best, and you’ll probably look through a PCB design software list to find the tools you need. Open source software carries zero price tag, but it simply isn’t capable of tasks professionals need to perform every day. If you’re considering a new PCB design software package, consider this first. You need all the tools the industry demands, and there is no reason to Watch Video

Creating an HDI PCB Stackup

Advanced High Density PCB Layout and Design in Altium Designer HDI design and high density interconnect routing require implementing a specific process in the PCB stackup and design rules. Learn more in this chapter of Happy Holden's guidebook. Read Article

Create Your PCB Design Workflow for Military Systems in Altium Designer

Military PCB Assembly and Workflow in Altium Designer No matter which industry or vertical you work in, you’ll need to follow important design, performance, and manufacturability standards. These requirements are more stringent when working with military-grade electronic systems. When you work with design software built on a rules-driven design engine, meeting these important standards becomes much easier. Altium Designer gives you the power to prepare a compliant PCB design and prepare manufacturer Read Article

The Best PCB Design Software Features a PCB Trace Impedance Calculator

The Best PCB Design Software Features a PCB Trace Width and Impedance Calculator PCB trace width, pad, and via features are some of the most important aspects of your circuit board's performance and need to be carefully designed. The right cross-sectional PCB trace area and distance to the nearest reference plane will ensure your PCB trace impedance is consistent throughout your board. It can also help suppress temperature rise if your board operates at a high current. Choosing the right trace dimensions involves balancing Read Article

The Best High Speed Design Tools in Altium Designer

The Best High Speed Design Software Tools in Altium Designer Building your next high-speed PCB takes the best design and analysis tools. Your high-speed design tools should make it easy to route connections, place components, and design your stackup in a way that ensures signal integrity and prevents unintended crosstalk. Your analysis tools should help you identify problem areas in your PCB, and your design tools should help you quickly implement redesigns in your PCB. With the high-speed PCB design Read Article

Differential Microstrip Routing

Routing Differential Microstrip Traces with Controlled Impedance Differential microstrip routing in high speed PCB design requires careful impedance calculations. Altium Designer incorporates these features into its CAD tools. Read Article

Digital On-Demand Manufacturing and a 32-Bit MCU PCB for Everyone

Digital On-Demand Manufacturing and a 32-Bit MCU PCB for Everyone Eli Hughes shows us how on-demand manufacturing through a PCB manufacturer's cloud platform helped him quickly produce a set of high-quality prototypes for a MCU board. Read Article

PCB loss tangent epsilon

All About PCB Loss Tangent: What it Means and When it Matters Do you know the PCB loss tangent for your laminate? Learn more about this important factor and how it affects your signals. Read Article

Automotive Ethernet cables

Automotive Ethernet Standards: Present and Future Design Requirements Get ready for more cars to make greater use of automotive Ethernet. Here’s what systems designers and PCB designers can expect. Read Article

Return loss vs. reflection coefficient

S11 Parameter vs. Return Loss vs. Reflection Coefficient: When Are They the Same? What is the difference between return loss vs. reflection coefficient and the S11 parameter? We’ve got your answers in this article. Read Article

High speed PCB signaling standards

LVDS to LVPECL, CML, and Single-Ended Conversions A lot is made of high speed interfaces for PCBs. Here’s how you interface between LVDS to LVPECL, CML, and other logic families. Read Article

SOURCE® Hydropanels Renewable Clean Water from the Air

SOURCE® Hydropanels Renewable Clean Water from the Air Cody Friesen joins the OnTrack podcast to discuss materials science, entrepreneurship, the ASUIO competition, and how he came to develop the hydropanel. Read Article

WiFi 6 and WiF 6 PCB design

WiFi 6 PCB Design Guide and 802.11 Standards Your next PCB might need WiFi 6 capabilities. Here’s what you need to know about WiFi 6 PCB design and layout. Read Article