PCB Design Engineers

Crosstalk in Mixed-Signal PCB Traces and Ground Planes

Crosstalk in Mixed-Signal PCB Traces and Ground Planes Learn how to suppress mixed signal crosstalk and EMI in PCBs with the right ground and power plane arrangement. Read Article

Creating a Ground Plane for Your PCB Design

How to Make a Ground Plane for Your PCB Design Wondering how to make a ground plane? Some helpful tips for creating ground planes in your PCB design using Altium Designer. Read Article

Build High Density Interconnect PCBs with Skip Vias

Using Skip Vias vs. Blind Vias to Build High Density Interconnect PCBs All high-density PCBs rely on specific via styles to make connections into the inner layers without taking up space for routing. This is always driven by the components used in the PCB, namely fine-pitch BGAs with many high pin counts. One of the options for routing into inner layers as part of fanout routing is to use skip vias. Type-I HDI stackups will include skip vias as part of their routing options in an attempt to avoid the use of buried Read Article

In Your Altium Library, Multiple Part Symbols Ease Your Design Time

Creating Multiple-Part Symbols for a PCB in Altium Designer How to create multi-part components and symbols in Altium Designer^®. Build a symbol manually or use an advanced symbol generator to do the heavy lifting of symbol creation for you. Read Article

Create a Symbol Quickly Using the Altium Designer’s Schematic Symbol Generation Tool

How to Create Schematic Symbols in Altium Designer A step by step walk through of the Schematic Symbol Generation Tool in Altium Designer. Read Article

Generate Gerber Files in Altium Designer Step-by-Step from Schematic to PCB

How to Make PCB Gerber Files in Altium Designer Step-by-Step Looking for the best approach for CAM jobs? Learn how to make PCB Gerber files in Altium Designer from your circuit board layout. Altium's CAM tools can help you quickly create PCB Gerber files. Read Article

Design for Electromagnetic Compatibility in PCB: Let Your Revels Never End

PCB Design for Electromagnetic Compatibility PCB Design for electromagnetic compatibility with the goal of reduced EMI and passing EMC compliance testing. Read Article

Circuit Design Tips: PCB Moisture Protection for Humid Environments

Circuit Design Tips: PCB Moisture Protection for Humid Environments Learn more about implementing PCB moisture protection and storage in your design to prevent corrosion and board failure. Read Article

Fiducial Marker Placements and PCB fiducial size

Are Fiducial Marker Placements on PCBs Still Necessary with Modern Manufacturing Capabilities? In PCB design, a fiducial marker is a rounded shape of copper that acts as a reference point for pick and place assembly machines. Fiducial PCB markers help machines recognize the orientation of the PCB as it passes through SMT. Based on the PCB orientation and the prior orientation of components on reels, the machine can be programmed to rotate components by specific amounts to ensure accurate placement on their land patterns. Placement of Read Article

How to Use a Ferrite Bead in Your Design to Reduce EMI

How to Use (and Not Use) a Ferrite Bead in Your Design to Reduce EMI EMI and EMC can be a tricky subjects, and it's often tempting to mis-apply design guidelines to try and reduce EMI. One of these areas relating to EMC in PCB design is the use of ferrite beads. These components are basically filters, and they do perform a useful function on power cords in many electronics. You're probably reading this article on a laptop that uses a ferrite to filter out conducted EMI from the supply line. A problem begins to Read Article

How Do Ferrite Beads Work and How Do You Choose the Right One?

How Do Ferrite Beads Work and How Do You Choose the Right One? Ferrite beads are sometimes overused in PCB design, but they can perform important functions in a PCB if you know how to use them. Read Article

PCB Design Tools

PCB Design Tools Utilizing the available PCB design tools to their maximum potential allows designers to strike the perfect balance of passion and productivity in their work. Data from top performing designers demonstrates how these tools can lead to more successful outcomes in both business and engineering when used correctly. Key findings include: Best-in-Class companies are more likely to improve designer productivity through tool and process efficiency. The Read Article

Microvias in printed circuit design for HDI PCBs

Everything You Need to Know About Microvias in Printed Circuit Design Have you ever wondered how designers pack so much functionality into such a small space? You can thank HDI design techniques and microvias in printed circuit design. These small structures let traces reach inner layers of a PCB with high interconnect density and high layer count. These structures have been around for years, but they are becoming more common in a variety of systems that require multiple functions on a single circuit board. If you Read Article

Impacts of Design Miniaturization and Complexity

Getting Started with Design Miniaturization: Impacts and Complexity Since they’ve been created, electronics have been getting smaller, faster, and more efficient. But when you try to cram more components, pins, and connections in a smaller sized board, you’re going to have some problems. These challenges include heat, BGA breakouts and size itself, meaning how are you going to fit your board in that small, oddly shaped enclosure. Here are a few quick stats: Board area has remained relatively constant, while the Read Article

Challenges with Rigid-Flex Design

Challenges with Rigid-Flex Design To learn more about this topic please see the full solution - Challenges with Rigid-Flex Design - at Altium.com. Read Article

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How to Avoid Common PCB Signal Integrity Issues in Your Designs

How to Avoid Common PCB Signal Integrity Issues in Your Designs Learn the common PCB signal integrity approaches to help eliminate basic system level failures. Read Article