Unified Design

Browse our library of resources to learn more about unified design strategies for PCB design engineers.

How To Design the Perfect PCB Stack Up With Altium Designer

How To Design the Perfect PCB Stack Up With Altium Designer In the last 20+ years, electronics have become increasingly more complex. Board density is always being pushed to the limits, EMC/EMI regulations evolved and got stricter, and edge rates have become smaller. Therefore, the PCB Layout engineer needs a good understanding of EMC, PDN, EMI, and SI in order to route a modern PCB with confidence. In this article we’ll talk about some of the considerations we should have in order to create a PCB stackup Read Article

How to Design a Printed Circuit Board

10 Easy Steps to Design a Circuit Board - Altium Designer How to design PCB boards is not easy to figure out, but the right pcb design software can go a long way. Other engineers have taken the time to learn the art of PCB design, and you can benefit from their experience. If you’re new to PCB design and you’re still learning about designing a custom circuit board in Altium Designer^®, we’ve compiled the 10 important steps you can use to create modern PCB layouts for nearly any application. There is a Read Article

Customize designs with Consistent and Flexible Custom Rules and Queries

Customize designs with Consistent and Flexible Custom Rules and Queries In the early stages of a circuit design, I frequently consider mechanical dimensions along with circuit requirements. Knowing dimensions of large components helps me visualize where they will fit with respect to overall three-dimensional device enclosure and the board’s location within the space. During the thought experiment for fit, I begin making notes about tolerances I’ll push as a tradeoff between electrical functionality and mechanical Read Article

Manually Creating Component Footprint

4 Steps to Create a Component Footprint in Altium Designer When laying out your printed circuit board, it is critical that you create a component footprint for your design. Some components are quite common or they come in standardized packages, making footprints easy to find. In some cases, you may need to create a footprint yourself, and you’ll need to use information directly from the component’s datasheet. If the footprint is incorrect, the part pins may not align with PCB pads or the part may violate Read Article

Learn to Manage Your BOM Inventory for Smooth Production Runs

Learn to Manage Your BOM Inventory for Smooth Production Runs I’ve recently gotten into fermenting kombucha (which, I am well aware, is about the most hipster thing I could have said), and I ordered a handful of different-sized mason jars online in order to store it. Mason jars are reliable as ever but with the increasing popularity of home-fermenting and brewing, they’re one part of an industry trying to optimize how we store. During my ordering process alone, I had twelve tabs open of marginally different Read Article

Bill of Materials for PCB: Part Numbers and Organization, or Packing Tetris?

Bill of Materials for PCB: Part Numbers and Organization, or Packing Tetris? It would be great if spending a day at the beach didn’t require gathering towels and chairs, fixing a lunch and making sure there was enough sunscreen to go around. Swimsuit selection, packing up and traveling are also unpleasant chores. It would be nice to just think “beach” while sitting on the couch, and suddenly be comfortably working on a tan with your toes in the sand. That’s the thing about organization though; it’s what really gets us Read Article

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

Design for Electromagnetic Compatibility in PCB: Let Your Revels Never End What if William Shakespeare worked as an electrical engineer instead of a poet and playwright? If electronics existed during the mid-to-late sixteenth century, the Bard may have studied the impact of electromagnetic interference (EMI) on circuits and the need for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). After all, he wrote about his fascination with noise in The Tempest: “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give Read Article

Microcontroller Failure Modes: Why They Happen and How to Prevent Them

Microcontroller Failure Modes: Why They Happen and How to Prevent Them I owe much of my design success to my college. Not because of the lab experiments where we learned what might accidentally blow up a capacitor, but because we learned that Murphy’s Law can strike when you least expect it to. Since I spent a lot of time playing Warcraft and struggling to finish up endless assignments, I relied on my computer to function at all times. Back then, computers were pretty limited and it wasn’t uncommon to see the Read Article

Bluetooth Low Energy and the Internet of Things

Bluetooth Low Energy and the Internet of Things Did you ever “reinvent yourself” at some time in your life? I did, I went from the nerd in high school who wore cargo shorts and high socks to a less nerdy college student who had regular socks and shorts with the fashionable number of pockets. By the end of college, I had learned “social skills” and was finally ready to enter society as the best, or at least acceptable, version of me. People aren’t the only things that need reinvention, so do Read Article

Why You Should Follow These Best Practices In Real Time Clock Design

Why You Should Follow These Best Practices In Real Time Clock Design Have you ever been late for school because your alarm clock decided to stop at 3.15 AM? In high school, my alarm clock wasn’t very pleasant sounding, but the sound of my mom shouting at me was worse. I knew that my clock had stopped because its battery was dead. However, had I paid closer attention, I would have noticed that my clock ran slower as the battery drained off. That way I could have changed it in time and avoided rising to my mom’s Read Article

Wearable Devices: Technology Bridging Function and Fashion

Wearable Tech: Functional and Fashionable Technology Do you ever look at old pictures of your parents when they were younger and wonder, “why were they wearing those hideous clothes?” I find the giant glasses to be particularly bad. Fashion is and always has been important, even if trends change. When it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable electronics, aesthetics often seem to be left by the wayside. Designers seem to let functionality determine to look and form factor, rather than Read Article

Considerations for Designing a High Voltage PCB

Considerations for Designing a High Voltage PCB I used to think that high voltage applications were only used in power engineering. Since I had no desire to work at a power plant or transformer station, I was safe from having to learn high voltage PCB design considerations. Alas, my interest in space applications proved me wrong and forced me to confront my laziness. It turns out high voltage applications show up in almost every industry, from manufacturing and power plants to medical and Read Article

Collaborative Design Part 1: Designing PCBs as a Unified Team

Collaborative Design Part 1: Optimizing PCB Design in Teams Electronic design isn't a solo gig anymore. Teamwork among dozens or hundreds of designers, engineers, suppliers, manufacturers, and any number of other people is essential for bringing a product to market. This blog series explores the ways to cut through the barriers and reduce some of the tedious back-and-forth dialog that slows design cycles to a crawl. In part 1, we'll take a look at what kinds of features make for effective collaboration Read Article

Experience a Completely Unified Design Environment

Experience a Completely Unified Design Environment With today’s ever growing market expectations, strict project deadlines, and increasingly complex designs, what solutions exist to minimize the time spent switching between your design tools to complete projects? Now you can successfully deliver products on time and within budget in a completely unified design environment. Read on to find out how. Do you feel like your schematic and pcb tools are from different planets? Are you still using a Read Article

Syncing Your Schematics and PCB Layouts Increases Efficiency and On-Time Delivery

Syncing Your Schematics and PCB Layouts Increases Efficiency and On-Time Delivery A while back, I was working at a company that designs and installs systems for automating smart irrigation and environmental monitoring. We had gotten into the habit of making last-minute “hacks” (pin swapping, gate swapping, etc.) to any component or board to accommodate a specific need from a job (or to compensate for a design flaw or oversight on a particular model after getting it back from the manufacturer). While this improvisatory method Read Article