PCB Design

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

Aspect Ratios and Their Importance to Multi-Layered PCBs There’s a certain level of gratification that comes with doing something challenging. In my off time, I tinker with carving spoons and other utensils. They seem incredibly simple to make but the difficulty comes in making the curve just right, smoothing out the wood, and adding any ornate finishes you want on the handle. When embarking on the manufacturing journey post PCB design, you may be one of the skilled few who have taken on the challenge Read Article

To Wave or Not To Wave: Wave Soldering Advantages and Disadvantages One evening when there were no good games on TV I let my girlfriend talk me into going to see a play. It was written by some famous guy and I reluctantly went. The part that stayed with me was when a young guy, the star, was asking himself, “To be or not to be…” Apparently, he was undecided about taking action and was wondering what would happen after he did. This prompted me to consider if I could be a better PCB if I knew more about what Read Article

Rigid Flex PCBs and Your Future: Smart, Effective Designing Oftentimes, in terms of PCB design, we are tasked with fitting a square peg into a round hole. Fitting thousands of various components onto a board no larger than a dollar bill, and maybe even a quarter, we always seem to be limited to the 2D plane of predetermined space within our equipment or device. We’ve all been there: after putting the finishing touches on a PCB design, you take a look at the space requirements of the device only to find Read Article

Save Your Lunch Break: Proper PCB Design Software Reduces Development Time I’m normally a well-mannered guy, but when someone messes up my schedule, those manners fly right out of the window. Last week, when my 15-minute lunch break was ruined because of a missed order, I was complaining to my managers and struggling to keep my rage under control. When it comes to managing my time, I have high standards. Choosing the right PCB design software to optimize development time is no exception. At the peak of my freelance Read Article

8-bit vs. 32-bit MCU: Choosing the Right Microcontroller for Your PCB Design I have very bad shopping habits when it comes to electronic gadgets. Torn between buying a new laptop or upgrading my tablet to an iPad Pro, I end up purchasing both and getting an endless lecture from my fiancé. Thankfully, I’m more decisive when choosing between 8 bit vs 32 bit microcontroller devices for my hardware design. They’re not too different in terms of cost, and one is more powerful than the other. To make the right choice, however Read Article

The Game Stays the Same: Helping PCB Designers with Their Career Growth Walking around the grade school near my house today, I noticed a father practicing baseball with his young son. Now around here, it’s still rainy and freezing cold, so they were bundled up and wisely under the covered portion of the playground. I didn’t know whether to applaud their dedication, or classify them as a couple of nuts. I decided to go with the dedication angle, and admittedly, it was great to see the dad’s excitement when his boy Read Article

Using PCB Star Grounding Can Keep Your Design Shining Star charts and sextants seem like something from the days of sailing ships. Yet, unmanned and manned spacecraft depend on precise celestial navigation. When calculating the trajectory needed to traverse the solar system, interplanetary probes use an inertial coordinate system that places a grid fixed relative to a star background over the solar system. During manned lunar missions, the Guidance and Navigation dictionary relied on star charts Read Article

PCBs from Space to Snow Plowing OnTrack Newsletter February 2018 On Track Newsletter February 2018 VOL. 1 No 11 Welcome to the February edition of the Altium® On Track Newsletter. There is justifiable concern in our industry about where the next generation of PCB designers will come from. Estimates show that in approximately ten years, 50% of currently working PCB designers will be retiring—which is an alarming statistic! Since joining Altium exactly one year ago, I have seen overwhelming evidence from around Read Article

PCB Layout Tips for Hall Effect Applications Keep Your Designs Positive To me, one of the coolest things about kids is how much they can be amazed by science and other phenomena that, as an adult, you’ve just grown to accept. I gave a five-year old homemade magnetic slime for his birthday one year; consisting of iron oxide powder, Elmer’s glue, and liquid starch, the prospect of a black gooey mess delighted everyone except for the boy’s mother. No one could dispute the fun involved with mixing the stuff or the Read Article

RF Signal Chain and Link Budget Basics for IoT Did you ever play the game Telephone as a kid? One person comes up with a message and whispers it into the ear of the next person. Messages get passed from one person to another, until the final message is announced and compared to the original. Sometimes, there’s a minor difference between the two messages, and other times, the message is lost completely. When sending a signal from an Internet of Things (IoT) device to a base station (or master Read Article

From Tape-ups to ActiveRoute, a discussion with Charles Pfeil Charles Pfeil and Judy Warner take a look back on the days of manual design, before exploring today’s very different eCAD competitive landscape and the tools that take designers to the next level. Join the conversation on PCB design, autorouters and the future of software design tools.Leave comments and questions below for feedback we can use to improve the podcast and please remember to subscribe. Listen to the Podcast: Download this episode Read Article

Multi-board Design, a discussion with Ben Jordan Join Altium’s Judy Warner and Ben Jordan for a conversation on Multiboard PCB design. Listen to the Podcast: Download this episode (right click and save) Watch the video: Show Highlights: Many different product areas are being impacted by developments in Electronics, opening new frontiers - beauty products, wearables Electronics are replacing things that traditionally were not electronics Electronics product development are increasingly driven by Read Article

The PCB Design Podcast with Judy Warner Listen to the new PCB Design Podcast featuring Judy Warner and special guests, brought to you by Altium and the OnTrack Community. Listen to all the episodes here or on your favorite Podcast app. Feel free to comment below if you can't find us on your favorite platform and we'll make sure you can! Listen to all the latest OnTrack episodes below. Latest Episodes: Trade In Your Outdated PCB Design Tool & Unlock 45% OFF Altium today! Click here to Read Article

For Your DC Power Application, Which Switching Power Supply Topology is Right? We often have our old-timer pioneers to thank for laying down the groundwork for our continued success and future growth. These old-school designers had nothing more than theory and confidence to drive their designs, or more specifically, to drive their failures. But as stated by a multitude of wise individuals, each failure is nothing more than a discovery of how not to do something. However, with the discoveries of failures also come Read Article

Embedded RF Design: Ceramic Chip Antennas vs. PCB Trace Antennas Over the years, there’s been a large rise in café culture which has left many of the newer cafés looking for ways of adding a creative interest to their store. Café and bookstore hybrids, gourmet coffee with baristas that have an expertise over regional coffee beans, and even cat cafés have all been twists I’ve seen pop-up. When it comes down to it, people are going to cafés for a few key reasons though: to get a drink or snack, to meet and talk Read Article

PCB Chassis Might Keep Your PCB Design From Exhausting Itself The world of racing is something that both fascinates and eludes me. On one hand, it’s thrilling to watch cars that have been fine-tuned to the most minute weight and aerodynamic requirements go flying down a road or around a track. On the other hand, from my experience, the majority of thrill from the sport largely comes from the accumulation of narratives and knowledge beforehand. I don’t care so much about actually watching the cars run smooth Read Article

SpaceX and Other Advanced Technologies Require Multi Board PCB Innovations When I was in middle school I used to love to build and fly model rockets. We had a rocket club at school and except for the number of rockets that I littered the trees with, it was a lot of fun. One thing was certain though, although the rockets we launched went up, no one knew exactly where they might come down. Suspended by their parachutes (assuming that those chutes actually deployed as intended), they might land anywhere. Recently I watched Read Article