Project Management

Battling Your Power and Data Transmission Demands

Battling Your Power and Data Transmission Demands As an industry, we have approached the increased power consumption and data transmission requirements differently depending on the application of our devices and peripherals. Wouldn’t it be great to have a simplified solution that everyone could use? Do your designs invariably require more components as you struggle to maintain an elegant design? As we seek to expand the capabilities of our devices, the arduous task of keeping our board designs Read Article

How to Automate Your Component Management Process

How to Automate Your Component Management Process How many times have you found yourself deep in a project, only to find that one of the main components is on backorder, or, worse yet, is in obsolescence? This happens to engineers every day, but it doesn't’ have to. Read to learn more about automating your component management process. How many times have you found yourself deep in a project, only to find that one of the main components is on backorder, or, worse yet, is in obsolescence? How Read Article

How to Address Design Issues Before It’s Too Late

How to Address Design Issues Before It’s Too Late What measures do you take to see past the quality testing of your PCB to ensure you never have to worry about issues post-production? The key lies in analysis automation. Read on to learn more. “ I ran PDN Analyzer^™ on a board currently in fabrication and already caught a mistake I made. I had a footprint peppered with vias and forgot to make them blinds and they were eating up my power plane. is proving to be a very useful tool to identify these Read Article

Altium Designer 2016 Roadshow Recap - Technologies, Predictions, and Passions

Altium Designer 2016 Roadshow Recap - Technologies, Predictions, and Passions From Berlin to the Bay Area and beyond, we journeyed across the globe to share our vision for future of electronics design with our customers at this year’s Altium Designer^® Roadshow Series. What does the future hold for Altium? Read on to find out. From Berlin to the Bay Area and beyond, we journeyed across the globe to share our vision for future of electronics design at this year’s Altium Roadshow Series. This event has always been something Read Article

The Power of Integration - Why Analysis Belongs to PCB Designers

The Power of Integration - Why Analysis Belongs to PCB Designers PCB designers often rely on simulation tools or prototypes for their network data, but this approach can disrupt design flow and drain funds. What if designers were capable of analyzing their network during the board layout process? Read on to find out how designers are increasing productivity with access to analysis data at design time. As the complexity of our product designs increases each year, so do the requirements of our designs. And Read Article

Altium Vault Primer Part 3: Strategizing Your Day-to-Day Library Management Process

Altium Vault Primer Part 3: Strategizing Your Day-to-Day Library Management Process Welcome back to the Altium Vault^® Primer series. In Part 2 we talked about how to unify your design and data management processes by combining both Altium Designer^® and Altium into one unified solution. In Part 3 we’ll be covering how to get started with Altium by strategizing your day-to-day management process with your design team. Welcome back to the Altium Primer series. In Part 2 we talked about how to unify your design and data management Read Article

The Power of PDN Analysis Automation

The Power of PDN Analysis Automation Relying on a prototype for analysis into your network costs time and money. Leveraging automation tools like the PDN Analyzer^™ can reduce costs and allow the engineer to optimize designs without relying on a prototype. Read on for more information. “There’s nothing worse than an engineer dropping a via stitch array late in the RF design process and leaving barely any power plane copper left to carry current on a board makes it painfully obvious Read Article

Altium Vault Primer Part 2: Unifying Your Design and Data Management Processes

Altium Vault Primer Part 2: Unifying Your Design and Data Management Processes Welcome back to the Altium Vault^® Primer series. In Part 1 we talked about the most problems every design team faces without a centralized data management system. If these issues resonated with you, then it’s time to consider getting set up with the Altium. But what is Altium? And how exactly does it help with PCB design? Welcome back to the Altium Primer series. In Part 1 we talked about the most problems every design team faces without a Read Article

How to Save Time Managing Your Component Libraries

How to Save Time Managing Your Component Libraries Component management is a time-consuming and frustrating process that takes valuable time away from other important tasks, but what if there was a way to auto-fill the necessary information for your components? Read on to learn how Altium Vault^® mitigates the management process with the use of a component template. Let us take a look at a pattern library and our component definition. Perhaps one of the most tedious jobs in the ECAD world is Read Article

Electronification of the World, One Wearable at a Time

Electronification of the World, One Wearable at a Time As the world of electronic manufacturing shifts into the eras of Industry 4.0, IoT, and Big Data, it’s becoming more important than ever for companies to embrace software platforms to remain competitive. This process has never been more challenging when you factor in other competing goals including reducing time to market, increasing quality and efficiency, and optimizing your entire value chain. What’s driving this transformation where today’s Read Article

How to Simplify and Automate Your PCB ECO Workflow

Automating PCB Design Environments: How to Simplify and Automate Your PCB ECO Workflow Shuffling different programs for your schematic and PCB layout design changes costs both time and money. Altium Designer^® tackles this issue with a unified design system that automatically transfers data between schematic and PCB using component links. Read on to learn how component links are increasing productivity by automating ECO procedures. Transferring data from schematic to PCB, or vice versa, is traditionally a task stretched across Read Article

The Peak of Engineering Efficiency is Now Available in Altium Designer 17

The Peak of Engineering Efficiency is Now Available in Altium Designer 17 The Peak of Engineering Efficiency and PCB Design Technology is Now Available in Altium 17 The engineering mentality is one focused on efficiency and creativity. And whether you’re designing electronics in today’s autonomous vehicles or connected devices, the careful balance between art and science walks a very thin line. Sooner or later, you’re bound to hit a roadblock. Not in your ideas, but in executing those ideas efficiently in your tools Read Article

How to Easily Import Your Designs to Your Favorite Design Tools

How to Easily Import Your Designs to Your Favorite Design Tools One task that has always proven difficult is moving electronic product designs from one printed board design software environment to another. Whether you’ve changed PCB design tools or acquired designs from another company, there are a number of challenges involved in moving a project from one PCB software platform to another, while maintaining design consistency. It’s a difficult and time-consuming process, but it has to be done. Say a PCB has Read Article

How to Automate Your Design Review Process

How to Automate Your Design Review Workflow and Process Your typical design review workflow can be filled with endless hurdles, errors, and time-consuming processes without the right tools, but it doesn’t have to be. Learn how you can automate your design review and comparison process in Altium Designer^®. The increasing demand for smaller, more capable electronics has been a major driving factor behind the development of more complex, densely packed PCBs. Although EDA software is regularly updated to Read Article

Defining PCB Library Types and Methodologies for Your Design Process

PCB Libraries: Defining Library Types and Methodologies for Your Design Process There are various PCB library types and methodologies out there, and selecting which to implement into your design process depends on a number of factors. But how do you know which library methodology is the best? Read on to find out. There are various types of PCB libraries and methodologies out there, and selecting which to implement into your design process depends on a number of factors. While some small business users may require only a bare Read Article

Altium Designer 17 and the Ever-Changing World of PCB Design Software

Altium Designer 17 and the Ever-Changing World of PCB Design Software The big news from Altium’s point of view is Altium Designer^®, an exciting new release of our professional PCB design software. Coincidentally, the release of version 17 occurs at a very newsworthy time with the announcement of a major acquisition in the EDA industry. Altium as a company has always focused on the needs of the PCB design engineers, how to make their job of design easier, and providing a truly unified set of tools that are Read Article

Supply Chain Management: Ensure Component Availability at Design Time

Supply Chain Management: Ensure Component Availability at Design Time Component availability can result in missed deadlines or render a design unproducible. Learn how to the supply chain management capabilities (SCM) in Altium Designer^® can mitigate these issues. Read on to find out more about our supply chain management program, raw material, logistics management, and the supply chain manager. Not having insight into component availability can result in a product being late, missing a market window, or not even Read Article