Unified Design

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

Automate Output Job File Processing with PCB Release View in Altium Deisgner There are many ways to peel an orange - so to speak - and some are better than others. And when it comes to generating fabrication and assembly outputs from your designs this adage holds true. In this PCB design tip, FAE Dave Cousineau describes a re-usable, highly effective way of managing output jobs using the PCB design release capability of Altium Designer®. Using Output Job files to define and store the necessary documentation needs for any Read Article

How Many Interfaces Does It Take to Complete a PCB Design? Ever find yourself juggling multiple interfaces just to accomplish one singular goal of your PCB design? Learn how easy it can be to design a PCB with a unified design environment in Altium Designer®. That’s a trick question, it only takes one. But for many engineers, designing a PCB often involves learning multiple sets of software just to accomplish one final goal. And even then, there's no guarantee that a multi-tool chain approach will Read Article

New Features You’ll Only See in Altium Designer 16 We’ve packed many new features in Altium Designer®, allowing you to get your designs done faster than ever. Check out our top 3, and register now for a free webinar to see them all! It’s that time of the year again, and we’ve got a major update planned for Altium . Our focus has always been on providing you with the most productive and efficient design tool that allows you to tap into your true design potential. This release is no exception to Read Article

5 (More) Productivity-Boosting Features in Altium Designer You Need to Start Using Now We’re back with another series of productivity-boosting features for you to take advantage of in Altium Designer®. If you missed us last week, check out our first blog post for the other 5 productivity enhancers we’ve covered. I’ve included some great time saving and workflow enhancement features in this article that will help to automate many of those tedious, repetitive tasks that we have to perform in our designs. Read on to learn more! Cross Read Article

5 Time-Saving Productivity Features in Altium Designer You Need to Be Using Now Are you getting the most efficiency out of your Altium Designer® workflow? Use these 5 time-saving features to enhance your PCB design productivity. I sat down to talk with some of our best and brightest at Altium Designer, those that have poured countless hours and effort into learning, using, and developing Altium Designer. Why? I wanted to extract the top 5 productivity features they use day in and day out that shave hours off of their design Read Article

Open Source OLED Watch It's a great time to be an engineer and a designer. In keeping with the theme of Petr Tosovsky's Open Source Projects in our Altium Designer blog, we found another Open Source Hardware (OSHW) project which was so cool we wanted to share it with the community. In this blog, Ben Jordan interviews 4th year computer engineering student Jared Sanson about his awesome OLED watch (smart watch), which he designed the electronics for in Altium Designer® Read Article

Power nets management - take 2 My recent blog post about Power nets management attracted a large number of very interesting and very informative comments. It has been heart warming, for me, to see so many people getting involved in the discussion. All these contributions have helped me appreciate how vast and intricate the domain of power management can be. My recent blog post about Power nets management attracted a large number of very interesting and very informative Read Article

Open Source Hardware & PCB Projects in Altium Designer Article translated by Google, and edited in English by Ben Jordan. More and more engineers and PCB designers are getting involved in the rising tide of open source hardware projects. There are some really cool ones out there, and in this blog, FAE and consultant Petr Tošovský from Retry S.R.O. in Czech Republic highlights a few that caught his eye, and I ask the important question at the end - so read and answer with your thoughts! When you’re Read Article

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

Reducing Metastability in FPGA Designs Here, we take a look at the concept of metastability in regards to digital circuits – and therefore FPGA designs – and how its 'appearance' can be greatly reduced simply by adhering to proven design principles that mitigate its effect. Metastability! You could be forgiven for thinking this might be related to the integrity of some futuristic containment vessel, or force-field: "The metastability of the warp drive's flux triangulator and cryonic Read Article

Ruminating Rigid-Flex - Part 1 More and more designers are facing the need to reduce size and cost of the products they design, while increasing density and simplifying assembly. Rigid-Flex circuits (those which incorporate flexible portions between separate rigid sections) are becoming a more common solution. This blog is the beginning of a short series which discusses the materials, fabrication, and design methods for using rigid-flex technology. As the title of this blog Read Article

Creating a custom Altium pick and place file I recently worked with a customer who had to generate a nonstandard pick and place file because his assembly house was using antiquated equipment and could not accept a standard Altium pick and place file. I thought it might be helpful to show how to use the Bill of Material generator within Altium Designer® to create a custom report to meet such needs. I recently worked with a customer who had to generate a nonstandard pick and place file Read Article

Power Nets Management: Circuit Board Best Practices A recent BugCrunch item (Power input vs output) raised the long standing issue of power management in Altium Designer®. PCB fabrication can be a complicated process when considering all of the items that go into it. Between the vias, solder mask, and solder, things can get messy. To ensure we are all on the same page, I have some opinions on PCB assembly before work gets started. As always, I will be very interested in your thoughts and comments Read Article

The Hateful Five of PCB Manufacturing You just completed your last design review, got that needed approval signature, and the finish line has never been closer, or so you think. Even after your components are sourced and your board is laid out perfectly, the biggest challenge is yet to come - ensuring that all those months of design and team effort don’t go to waste when it comes time to communicate design intent to manufacturing. But how do you navigate this stage of your post Read Article

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

Personalizing Your Altium Designer Experience The “one-stop-shop” approach to electronics design provides engineers with all the PCB software they need, all at their fingertips. However, since there’s so much going on in the Altium Designer® package, it can get overwhelming. How can you manage this plethora of functionality effectively? Modern PCB design software employ an ever growing collection of features and functionality. One of the leaders in this area is Altium, which provides users Read Article

Draftsman: Make the Software Do the Documentation You’ve routed your last route. Stitched your last via. Poured your last pour. You’re finally done with that board — time to celebrate! (Or at least move on to the next project.) Hang on! You’re not done yet. There’s still the documentation to be done – the fab drawings, the assembly CAD drawings, everything the fab shop needs to turn your carefully crafted work of art into a real electronic product. Unfortunately, the tools you have access to in Read Article