Home
Products
Solutions
Community
Resources
Company
Free Trials

Download a free trial to find out which Altium software best suits your needs

Contact your local sales office to get started on improving your design environment

Download the latest in PCB design and EDA software

PCB DESIGN SOFTWARE

Altium Designer

Complete Environment for Schematic + Layout

Entry Level, Professional PCB Design Tool

Community Based PCB Design Tool

Agile PCB Design For Teams

CLOUD PLATFORM

Connecting PCB Design to the Manufacturing Floor

COMPONENT MANAGEMENT

Altium Concord Pro

Complete Solution for Library Management

Extensive, Easy-to-Use Component Database

PRODUCT EXTENSIONS

Natural and Effortless Power Distribution Network Analysis

See All Extensions

EMBEDDED

World-Renowned Technology for Embedded Systems Development

TRAININGS

Learn best practices with instructional training available worldwide

On-Demand Courses

Gain comprehensive knowledge without leaving your home or office

ONLINE VIEWER

Altium 365 Viewer

View & Share electronic designs in your browser

Altium Designer 20

The most powerful, modern and easy-to-use PCB design tool for professional use

Altium Designer 20

The most powerful, modern and easy-to-use PCB design tool for professional use

Annual PCB Design Summit

Forum
Where Altium users and enthusiasts can interact with each other
Blog
Our blog about things that interest us and hopefully you too
Ideas
Submit ideas and vote for new features you want in Altium tools
Bug Crunch
Help make the software better by submitting bugs and voting on what's important
Wall
A stream of events on AltiumLive you follow by participating in or subscribing to
Beta Program
Information about participating in our Beta program and getting early access to Altium tools

Explore the latest content from blog posts to social media and technical white papers gathered together for your convenience

Take a look at what download options are available to best suit your needs

Contact your local sales office to get started improving your design environment

Documentation
The documentation area is where you can find extensive, versioned information about our software online, for free.
Training & Events
View the schedule and register for training events all around the world and online
Design Content
Browse our vast library of free design content including components, templates and reference designs
Webinars
Attend a live webinar online or get instant access to our on demand series of webinars
Support
Get your questions answered with our variety of direct support and self-service options
Technical Papers
Stay up to date with the latest technology and industry trends with our complete collection of technical white papers.
Video Library
Quick and to-the-point video tutorials to get you started with Altium Designer

Altium Leadership

Altium is led by a team of highly passionate industry experts

Market Announcements

Announcements to the ASX market from the preceding 3 years

Customer Success

Our customers can be found changing every industry; see how

PCB Design

Read the latest information PCB Design from the industry's leading experts.

Packing and Shipping Your PCBs: Best Practices I mailed my last Christmas present yesterday, a few weeks after the holidays are over. I’m only a little embarrassed; I like to do a very precise job with wrapping even if I’m not terribly concerned with punctuality. The package was for a friend overseas who had a craving for her favorite American candies. Let me tell you: a beautiful wrapping job on a bag of fun-size Butterfingers is no small feat. Circuit board packing and shipping are more Read Article

How is Your Design Affected by PCB Component to Edge Clearance? We are often tasked with fitting a plethora of things into a small window of space. Whether it be cramming loads of info into our heads moments before a final exam, fitting all twenty sightseeing activities into an eight hour “vacation day,” or strategically stacking our Thanksgiving plates full of deliciousness, we must be aware of the boundaries given, and how each unique item interacts with the items surrounding (heaven forbid the mashed Read Article

Getting Started with PCB Design To learn more about this topic please see the full solution - Getting Started with PCB Design - at Altium.com. Download PDF

Modern DFM, Princeton University, and Uniquely Shaped PCB Design OnTrack Newsletter January 2018 On Track Newsletter VOL. 1 No 8 Happy New Year and welcome to the January edition of the Altium® On Track Newsletter! In Designer Spotlight, we bring you a fresh perspective on DFM and prototyping with industry veteran Dirk Stans, owner of Belgium-based PCB manufacturer Eurocircuits. In Next Gen Innovators, we give you a glimpse under the hood of another impressive Formula SAE contender, Princeton University’s Racing Electric team. In the On Read Article

Thermal Pads vs Thermal Paste: The Best Choice for Mounting Your Heatsinks I used to work as a construction assistant, where my primary responsibility was to level properties prior to the heavy concrete trucks laying down a level foundation. It was a tedious and taxing job, but something that is quite crucial for a building in order for it to withstand years of use and abuse. I would run through a spit of land with nothing more than a shovel ensuring that the ground is flat and level within an inch tolerance. One inch Read Article

Avoid Re-Placing the Same Parts Over and Over Again with a Pre-Placement Checklist Sometime during the evolution of the automobile, car makers decided that reading and understanding engine gauges were too difficult tasks for the average driver. To remedy this they substituted the check engine light instead; unlike the malfunction indicators of today which are computer controlled warnings, those early check engine lights would only tell you of a problem once it was occurring. Reporting a problem after it occurs is not the Read Article

The Difference Between Breadboard Projects and Prototype Layouts I was just making myself some lunch and cutting up some fixin’s for a sandwich when it occurred to me that I was using a breadboard. Although I’ve always thought of it as a cutting board, it is actually what my grandmother would have called a breadboard; a flat piece of wood for slicing bread. For those of us in the electronics world, a “breadboard” is something very different. So, I decided to look it up. I was surprised to learn that in the Read Article

From Shack to Shed: What is a Bill of Materials and How Does it Help I’m planning on building a new utility shed in my backyard; the original shed was old and worn out when I first bought the house 20 years ago and it absolutely has to be replaced now. In fact, if it wasn’t for the thick coating of rust that seems to be protecting it, I’m not sure that it would even be standing anymore. I haven’t used a hammer and nails in my PCB designs before, so I ordered some plans on how to build this “Deluxe Backyard Storage Read Article

Soup-Up Your CAD Tools as a 64-Bit PCB Designer For all the hazards that come along with older cars—rips in their vinyl, paint missing, smoking, rusted frames, and oil leaking—I will admit they are fun. I owned a 1969 Chevy Impala and for all the bad, one thing going for it was that it had been built to go fast. Even though it had a 4 barrel Quadrajet carburetor on a 350 cu in small block driving 350 horses into a Muncie 4 speed transmission, it still would only carry 6 people (well, and the Read Article

Keep Your PCB Assembly and Production Processes Like Your Best Pants: Seamless I lost a button on an old pair of jeans the other day and I was totally unable to repair it. The seams were all sorts of wonky, and while normally you can find extra buttons along the waist there were none to be found. My mom taught me to always check the seams, but sometimes it’s easy to get lazy and forget to do some of the most basic procedures when you want to get an otherwise grueling experience done with. Some brands are more trustworthy Read Article

Learning Current Density: Don’t Pop the Balloon One area of PCB design that probably does not get the attention that it deserves is current density. Current density in a PCB trace is much like the pressure in a balloon. You want to squeeze as much air into the balloon as you can, but if you put too much: boom! The same is true of PCB traces many times. We want the traces to be as small as possible yet carry the most current possible, and if the trace carries too much: boom! For PCBs, that boom Read Article

Not That Much Force: Software for Updating PCB Layouts The other night I went to see the new Star Wars movie, “The Last Jedi," and although I really enjoyed the movie I found myself laughing out loud during one sequence. I wasn’t laughing because of the humor of the movie, or a silly looking alien—there were plenty of those to go around already. Instead I was laughing because for one brief sequence they showed some electronic circuitry that appeared to be composed of what looked like thru-hole Read Article

The Best PCB Component Placement Software Helps You to Efficiently Finish Your Placement Remember when we were kids and our parents gave us permission to do something fun but first we had to finish our chores? Now, taking out the garbage, folding clothes, and mowing the grass I’d prefer compared to budgeting for vacations or renovating bathrooms. Getting the chores completed lets me move on to something that is at least significantly more convenient and in many cases more fun. When I’m designing, I have similar chore preferences and Read Article

No More Wrong Ports: Implementing USB Devices In Your Hardware Design I keep having what I like to call “Grouchy Old Man Thoughts” (GOMT). You know the type: “Why do I have to learn this new thing if what I have works for me?” or, “I wonder what it’d be like to have a conversation without them being on their phone half the time.” Well, my most recent GOMT has been that I think anyone born after the 90s is pretty lucky, technologically. They didn’t have to go through the painstaking phase before Universal Serial Read Article

Riding the Wave: When Wave Soldering is the Best PCB Soldering Process Everybody loves the beach and I am no different. Sitting on the edge of the ocean being mesmerized by the ebb and flow of the water is a favorite pastime of mine. This is especially true when there are surfers riding the waves. It is awesome to watch a huge wave appear intent on engulfing them only to see them emerge upright on their boards having ridden the wave towards the shore. However, when too many surfers are bunched together they are Read Article

The Best PCB Routing Software Helps You to Finish Your Design on Time When my first child was young, my wife and I didn’t have a lot of income. It took everything that we had to pay the rent and put food on the table. When it came time for Christmas I really wanted to buy my boy a present, but I didn’t have any extra money to spend. That was a really humbling moment when I couldn’t even afford an extra couple of bucks for a toy. Fortunately, my wife had been saving money all along in preparation for Christmas. When Read Article

9:06 What are Embedded Passives/Actives and how to use them? In this Episode, John Magyar is talking about Embedded Components and the Differences between SMT Passive, SMT Active, Embedded Passive Watch Video