Thought Leadership

Altium works closely with the industry's leading experts to bring you these thought leadership resources on PCB Design.

Mode-Selective Transmission Line

Harness mmWave Routing with a Mode-Selective Transmission Line High frequency and data rate channels can be routed as a mode-selective transmission line. Here’s when you should consider this routing technique. Read Article

Meeting Standards: IPC 6012 Class 3 Annular Ring

Meeting Standards: IPC 6012 Class 3 Annular Ring Take a look at the above image of a PCB layout, specifically the vias and drill holes poking through the silkscreen. It's quite clear that some of these vias are off-center, meaning the drill hit that created these vias was not dead-center in the receiving land. This leaves behind an annular ring, something which might be considered a defect in certain IPC product classes. Under the IPC standards for rigid boards, we have several possible Read Article

PCB mount transformers

All About PCB-Mount Transformers Before you rectify your AC input down to DC, you’ll need to step down your mains power to the desired voltage with a PCB-mount transformer. Read Article

Star ground PCB

What is PCB Star Grounding and Why Would Anyone Use It? PCB star grounding can encourage bad design practices that lead to radiated EMI emissions in your PCB layout. Read Article

Mastering Magnetism: Hall Effect Sensors and Applications for PCBs

Mastering Magnetism: Hall Effect Sensors and Applications for PCBs Magnetism allows you to do some really cool things—especially when electrons move through a magnetic field. One device that uses the deflection of electron motion for sensing is a Hall effect sensor. These little devices are used in automotive, manufacturing, consumer electronics, and other industries. The Hall effect basically allows a magnetic field to be sensed, which offers several possible applications. Some of the possible applications Read Article

MLCC controlled ESR capacitor

Controlled ESR Capacitors: Should You Use Them for Power Integrity? I can’t think of a single product I’ve built that doesn’t require capacitors. We often talk a lot about effective series inductance (ESL) in capacitors and its effects on power integrity. What about effective series resistance (ESR)? Is there a technique you can use to determine the appropriate level of resistance, and can you use ESR to your advantage? Like many answers to important engineering questions, the answer is “it depends.” One type of Read Article

What Does it Take to be a PCB Layout Designer?

What Does it Take to be a PCB Layout Designer? In the movie “Men of Honor,” Robert De Niro portrayed Billy Sunday, a Navy diving instructor with a challenging pedagogical method. He motivated his student divers by describing how hard their job would be to prepare them for the difficulties of their tasks. He concluded his speech by saying, “I don’t know why anybody would want to be a Navy Diver.” His honesty, in this case, wasn’t intended to be demotivating—sometimes a job takes a certain type Read Article

PCB Designers for SpaceX and Beyond: Yesterday’s Fiction, Tomorrow’s Reality

PCB Designers for SpaceX and Beyond: Yesterday’s Fiction, Tomorrow’s Reality I’ve wanted a career in engineering for as long as I can remember. There were people who could MacGyver something out of nothing and I wanted to be one of those people. I’m sure that watching science fiction on TV added a lot to that. I mean, who wouldn’t want to manipulate technology and control immense power like “Scotty” on Star Trek? I found out that I’m not alone in those dreams—apparently, Scotty was the inspiration for much interest in Read Article

Keep Your PCB Assembly and Production Processes Like Your Best Pants: Seamless

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

microstrip to ground clearance

Microstrip Ground Clearance Part 2: How Clearance Affects Losses In a previous article, I provided a discussion and some simulation results on the necessary clearance between impedance controlled traces and nearby grounded copper pour. What we found was that, once the spacing between the pour and the trace becomes too small, the trace becomes an impedance-controlled coplanar waveguide (with or without ground). We also saw that the 3W rule for the spacing between the trace and the grounded copper pour is a bit Read Article

Differential Pairs and Differential Signals

What Are Differential Pair Signals? Differential pairs and differential signaling are the mainstay of high speed digital communication and data transfer. Read Article

what is signal integrity

What is Signal Integrity? Learn about the basics of signal integrity and how you can ensure your PCB layout complies with best practices for signal integrity. Read Article

Phalanx, not Failure: PCB Shielding to Protect Your Design

Phalanx, not Failure: PCB Shielding to Protect Your Design During 7 B.C., Greek soldiers—or hoplites--carried a large, concave, circular pcb shield called the hoplon. Made from bronze and wood, the hoplon or Argive shield protected hoplites from chin to knee and—when overlapped—became the basis for the Greek phalanx. At the beginning of the 20th century, Ethiopians used their shields when fighting against an invading Italian army. The constant banging on the shields by the Ethiopians mingled with war Read Article

Don’t Settle for Better Late Than Never: Packing and Shipping Your PCBs

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

Composite Amplifiers and How They Give the Best of Both Worlds

Composite Amplifiers and How They Give the Best of Both Worlds There are many times where you need an amplifier with high gain, low noise, high slew rate, and broad bandwidth simultaneously. However, not all of these design goals are possible with all off-the-shelf components. One solution is creative use of multiple amplifiers in a composite amplifier design. With the right composite amplifier, you can create a unique amplifier that exploits the best characteristics of each amplifier stage. Here are some Read Article

Avoid Re-Placing the Same Parts Over and Over Again with a Pre-Placement Checklist

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

Should You Omit a Current Limiting Resistor for LED If You're Using a Matching Voltage Power Supply?

Current Limiting Resistor LED Systems with Matching Voltage Power Supply Most of my friends in engineering live a balanced lifestyle. However, there are some engineers that are workaholics. These engineers do not limit their working hours and are constantly dealing with stress. Their lifestyle is not so different from an LED’s that is directly connected to a power supply without a current limiting resistor or with the wrong resistor value. They start out strong, but eventually flicker and burn out. In the architecture Read Article