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Rigid-Flex PCB Designs

Flex and rigid-flex PCB technology offers reduced weight and space savings. Today’s small lightweight consumer electronics are often built with rigid-flex technology, however, there can be many challenges in successful rigid-flex PCB design. Browse our library of resources to learn more about PCBs and rigid-flex design for flexible electronics and wearable designs.

Rigid Flex PCB Design Guidelines Best Practices for Rigid Flex Webinar Rigid Flex Design Challenges Rigid-Flex Design Documentation

59:55 Altium Designer® 21: A Better Way To Design The design process often requires repetitive work with tedious tasks. Altium Designer 21 represents a better way to design by Watch Video

When Should You Use a Flex Circuit? The two predominant reasons for using flex or rigid flex, are to solve a packaging issue or reduce the space and weight of the electronics package. These two are often interrelated and space, weight and packaging, (SWaP) will continue to be a driving force in PCB design. Read Article

Embedded RF Design: Ceramic Chip Antennas vs. PCB Trace Antennas Over the years, there’s been a large rise in café culture which has left many of the newer cafés looking for ways of adding a creative interest to their store. Café and bookstore hybrids, gourmet coffee with baristas that have an expertise over regional coffee beans, and even cat cafés have all been twists I’ve seen pop-up. When it comes down to it, people are going to cafés for a few key reasons though: to get a drink or snack, to meet and talk Read Article

Meeting the Challenges of Wearable Devices with Rigid-Flex PCB Design Learn more about Rigid Flex challenges and opportunities. Download PDF

Flexible Circuits: Getting Started Expert Tara Dunn tackles in detail the key benefits driving designers to use flexible materials. Read now to learn more. Read Article

Circuit Diagram Maker: Your Guide to Building with Altium Designer Some PCB design software packages make you feel like you’ve been bamboozled. On one hand, you’re told that you’ll have access to tools that will let you move through the entire design process. Then all of a sudden, you can’t finish your design without purchasing critical features as add-ons. Only Altium Designer integrates all the best circuit design tools in a single program. You can get access to free versions that includes critical design Read Article

Designing for Shock Management in Avionics PCBs Of all the electronics application areas, there is one that needs to carefully consider mechanical and thermal shocks during design: avionics. An avionics system that is put into production within a satellite, aircraft, or spacecraft can experience strong vibration and mechanical shock during flight, and these systems need to be designed with high reliability in mind. IPC standards, MIL-PRF standards, and other standards specify some design Read Article

How to Design and Fabricate a 4-Layer PCB Stackup with Altium Designer Every PCB design project starts with a stackup that has clearly defined signal and plane layers. Make sure you choose the right stackup for your design and make sure you design your stackup to comply with your fabricator’s requirements. A 4-layer PCB stackup may seem simple, but it needs to be designed with the right layer arrangement to ensure correct fabrication and impedance. Utilize the right PCB design software that helps you build the best Read Article

Customize Your PCB Drill Sizes With Altium Designer Every PCB will need some holes, vias, slots, and other features that are defined in a PCB layout. These features need to be reflected in fabrication documents, and designers need tools to help them automate this process of creating documentation directly from their designs. It’s easy to keep track of your holes, vias, electrical behavior, and much more in Altium Designer, the industry’s top PCB design application for professional design engineers Read Article

Design Your Metal Core PCB in Altium Designer Most printed circuit boards use a thick FR4 core layer to provide structural stability and interior copper layers for a multilayer PCB. If problems like excessive heat and low thermal dissipation are required in your particular application, you might consider designing with a metal core PCB. You’ll see other advantages like greater structural integrity, as well as a natural EMI shield thanks to the internal metal core. These circuit boards Read Article

PCB Routing Guidelines for Altium Designer Routing traces and vias on a PCB design is often thought of as a simple task. After setting up the footprint library and then perfecting the placement of the components on the board, it would seem a relatively easy matter to simply “hook ‘em up.” While that may have been true back in the days of routing low-speed TTL DIP components on simple boards, today’s design requirements are much more complex. Whether you’re working through a high-speed PCB Read Article

What is ISO 14300 In looking for the answer of what is ISO 14300, find out about space exploration device requirements and the potential behind CAD tools. ALTIUM DESIGNER PCB Design software with excellent communication through the design process. The International Standards Organization (ISO) represents 163 national standards bodies and functions as an independent, non-governmental entity. ISO meetings bring experts together to share knowledge and to gain Read Article

Taking a Modular PCB Design Approach in Altium Designer PCB design is rarely discussed in terms of designing to functional blocks or as connecting modules with different functionality. Simple designs can usually be designed without considering how your PCB layout affects the operation and interaction between multiple functional blocks in your board. With more complex designs, you’ll need to consider more than just the high-level overview of your board when you are designing a complex system.Modular Read Article

How to Keep Your 3D PCB Models Current with Data Management Tools Any component includes a significant amount of design data. This includes electrical models, 3D component models, and PCB supplier information. Your PCB design software should be allowed to take this data and integrate it with your MCAD tools. This allows you to create 3D body models from your PCB footprints and integrate them into a data library. Ensuring that this data stays up to date takes a data management platform that operates directly Read Article

Designing to Military Grade PCB Specifications with Altium Designer Military-grade PCBs carry stringent performance, sourcing, and manufacturing requirements that are encoded in a number of standards. Preparing your next Printed Circuit Board for a military electronics system for manufacturing and assembly must also follow important sourcing and quality standards. Meeting all of these requirements is easiest when you have access to all your design and production planning tools in a single program. Only Altium Read Article

The Best Printed Circuit Board Design Software for Your Aluminum PCB Whether for thermal performance, electrical isolation, or mechanical strength, your aluminum PCB needs the precision of Altium Designer to meet your design requirements. Altium Designer allows almost any aspect of your circuit boards to be customized, including the metal core or backing on an aluminum PCB. Designers can also specify other materials in their documentation for their fabricator, such as ceramics, aluminum flex PCBs, or other Read Article

Create, Share, Collaborate, and View CAD Drawings with Altium Designer PCB design collaboration is easy with a complete set of design tools and a cloud platform to view CAD drawings. Your PCB design features should make it easy to create a circuit board and take it through manufacturing. Instead of settling for freeware CAD programs or mechanical programs like AutoCAD, your team can connect through powerful tools that allow secure access to all design files in a PCB project. Whether you need to view your board or Read Article