Whitepapers

Whitepapers

Looking for Altium Whitepapers? Read the latest Altium Whitepapers covering PCB Design Topics in-depth from Prototype to Production.
Drawing Creation with Draftsman Technical drawings for a printed circuit board include a graphical representation of the product design along with information relevant to fabrication and assembly. PCB documentation and fabrication drawings are created in a variety of formats, including Gerber files, ODB ++, IPC 2581, and file formats from other CAD vendors. Any of these documents needs to correspond to data directly from your PCB layout. In addition to these fabrication Download PDF
Data Management - Pain Point Assessment It’s that phase of the project when you’re about to hand over a development released product to production. From the development perspective, everything, from designs, parts, models, BOMs, and documentation, are all in their release state. It’s a time that calls for a true celebration after weeks of sleepless nights to finish the design on time and within budget. Then you get the flash back with few what-if questions; did sourcing get the new Download PDF
The 4 Challenges to Transforming Data Management and Documentation into Designs To learn more about this topic please see the full solution - The 4 Challenges to Transforming Data Management and Documentation into Designs - at Altium.com. Download PDF
Solving Modern PCB Layout Challenges PCB technology advances are a two-edged sword. They have increased the power and applicability of electronics. But they also make PCB layout more difficult, raising the risk of longer time-to-market cycles and higher product costs. Designers can mitigate these risks by using a unified PCB layout software package that provides the automation necessary to bring products to market quickly and on-budget. TOPICS IN THIS SOLUTION SOLVING BGA ROUTING Download PDF
Design Release Management There is no question that many of the our recent technological advancements, have been in fact within the communication realm! From the internet, cell phones, satellites, Facebook, and so on, it’s all been geared for us to easily communicate and collaborate. However, with all this technology in the palm of our hands, many companies today still struggle communicating their ECAD data releases. Whether it is to internally collaborate with peers and Download PDF
The Challenges Of Library Management While there are many paths that can lead to a product failure, such as the challenge of managing a globally dispersed team, undeveloped development processes, working with multiple tools, and poor collaboration, one particular issue should be among the top priorities for any business to tackle: ECAD data library management TOPICS IN THIS SOLUTION DEFICIENT MANAGEMENT DATA, A HUGE PROBLEM WHY MANAGE ECAD DATA LIBRARY? ECAD DATA LIBRARY MANAGEMENT Download PDF
Customize BOM Reports for Consistent Documentation Learn how to clearly communicate proper board assembly with multiple variants with BOM customization in Altium Designer. Upon completion of a design, the project enters the assembly process where the assemblers and/or purchasers rely on trustworthy documentation to provide a list of components, materials, and parts necessary to produce the board design. This document, called the bill of materials (BOM), lists all of the required materials needed Download PDF
Teardrops Improve Your PCB Quality and Yield Learn how to improve the quality and yield of your PCB during manufacturing with teardrops. If you have even one printed circuit board design under your belt, you have probably been exposed to unexpected problems that are discovered during the fabrication or manufacturing process. Manufacturing problems can be caused by misaligned holes or have undesirable drill breakouts. Even if they don’t cause the board to be rejected, they can lead to Download PDF
Unleash Your Creativity — With Training Learn how to use neck-downs in Altium Designer to simplify your BGA routing process by shrinking and expanding tracks as they enter specific areas on your PCB. When you train decreases your errors range and expand your creative capacity. And this get better when you do the right choice selecting able people to training. Beyond that, the personal satisfaction of creating better, more reliable products is just plain fun! After all, didn’t you Download PDF
5 Ways to Customize Altium Designer for Better Efficiency Learn how to enhance your experience with Altium Designer by customizing your design environment to fit your exact PCB design needs. Menu items, shortcut keys, and toolbar icons are the three ways of accessing features within the Altium Designerenvironment. All of these are customizable and may enhance the user experience with Altium Designer. Any features that you feel are lacking in Altium Designer can be written with custom scripts and Download PDF
Quickly Find and Edit Objects Using Global Queries Every designer faces significant challenges once a board gets overpopulated with parts and traces. One of the greatest tasks of working with complex electronic designs is managing a large number of design objects. PCB or schematic filtering lets you find a “needle in a haystack” when you need to. Often, when you are working with schematics or PCB documents, you need to select objects of a given type, or that possess some common attribute Download PDF
Group Components into Rooms for More Efficient Layout The key to properly managing your component placements and traces is to utilize different techniques of grouping objects together rather than individually modifying each individual object. A lot of users hate the idea of having to individually bring a component to the board layout. This paper details what Altium Designer can do to make layout management easier and less time consuming, allowing you to meet your project deadlines. TOPICS IN THIS Download PDF
Pack More Complexity into a Smaller Footprint Using HDI Learn how you can keep up with smaller PCB form factors by using high-density interconnect (HDI) techniques in your next PCB design project. To learn more about this topic please see the full solution - How to Pack More Complexity into a Smaller Footprint Using HDI - at Altium.com. Download PDF
Quickly Create Project Libraries from the Schematic Learn how to quickly create project libraries from the schematic for easy external sharing using the Parameter Manager in Altium Designer. When you are using an outside manufacturer, or sharing a design with another party that does not have access to your internal installed libraries, creating a project library makes the data easy to share. No matter how you created your library — from already installed libraries, Altium Vault libraries, or even Download PDF
Adoptable, Adaptable and Agile: Key Factors in Successful ECAD-to-PLM Integration There’s no question that sharing information between ECAD and PLM systems can be beneficial for both design engineers and product lifecycle managers. TOPICS IN THIS SOLUTION Edaconnect for Altium Designer Adoptable Adaptable Agile EDACONNECT FOR ALTIUM DESIGNER The question is how to enable effective collaboration between them without adding unnecessarily to engineering overhead. Engineers and designers typically do not want to enter information Download PDF
Confidently Capture All Design Details in the Design Document The design document must capture all aspects of the design of a system. This includes the specification, design intent, design process and traceability back to the specification. Only then can the designer be confident that all relevant design information has been captured in one place. This paper is meant to be a guideline to prompt you to consider how to capture design details beyond the fabrication and assembly drawings. TOPICS IN THIS Download PDF
Quickly Identify and Correct Mistakes with Electronic Rule Checking A product lifecycle management (PLM) tool allows users to access all data related to corporate products. This includes all component and design data, but also other critical data such as cost, preferred suppliers and other relevant corporate data. They integrate data, processes, business systems, and ultimately people, offering unrivaled transparency into extended enterprise. PLM systems allow companies to manage information throughout the entire Download PDF