Electronics manufacturing, and specifically semiconductor manufacturing, is back in focus as a growth area thanks to initiatives like the CHIPS Act and similar legislation in the EU. But if you just follow what’s reported in the news, you will miss the bigger picture about the evolving role of electrical engineers and development of electronics assemblies. Bringing chip production capacity stateside is great, but the world still needs product designers to put those chips into new products.
Enter PCB design software, a type of CAD platform that is specialized for designing and building printed circuit boards and electronics assemblies. More electrical and electronics engineers are being tasked with taking on PCB design responsibilities, and oftentimes these engineers have little experience designing PCBs at a professional level. Without a properly designed PCB, semiconductor chips won’t work properly, and PCB design software is the key that ensures best design practices are implemented.
Features in Professional PCB Design Software
When students, freelancers, and startups begin looking for a design software package, their biggest reservation to buying an enterprise-grade application is usually the price. And as a result, they tend to gravitate towards a free software package. What they end up missing is the productivity boost, data management capabilities, and a few basic features needed to work with modern semiconductors.
As chip technology has advanced, the capabilities of PCB design software have also advanced so that users can be maximally efficient and make fewer mistakes. To help designers take advantage of the newest technologies and build advanced products, Altium Designer has become the industry’s go-to solution for PCB design and analysis. Here are some of the important solutions users can expect.
Management of CAD Models and Supply Chain Data
You would think that access to CAD models for electronic components should not be a big deal, right? Think again. Most designers end up relying on a CAD vendor-provided library or open-source libraries, or they are forced to make CAD models for components on their own. Even in 2023, this continues to be a major time waster for PCB designers.
Today, the best PCB design software is providing supply chain information, CAD models, and datasheets all in the same application. Altium Designer is the only CAD platform that is providing symbols, footprints, and 3D STEP models directly from semiconductor manufacturers. Thanks to integration with supply chain data aggregators, Altium Designer users can overcome two problems at once: component shortages and access to CAD models. This is a huge timesaver for PCB designers that allows users to focus on engineering the best products.
Advanced Routing Features
Part of enabling successful routing is design of a PCB stackup, where the conductive and insulating materials in a PCB are arranged into their respective layers. Once conductors are placed in the PCB stackup, routing rules need to be developed for different layers and digital interfaces. This means designing trace sizes to specific impedance values based on the layer arrangement in the design. Once the designer starts placing copper traces in the PCB layout, the routing tool needs to automatically reference these designs.
The routing tools in an advanced PCB design software package like Altium Designer can easily incorporate these rules and reference them when routing traces. This means copper traces always have the correct sizing, spacing, and layer assignments. More advanced features, like delay tuning in differential pairs, are also easily accessible in Altium Designer.
High-speed digital PCB design is one area where many designers struggle to create design rules and implement them successfully in PCB design software. Altium Designer includes multiple tools for high-speed PCB design which support standard computing interfaces, such as DDR and PCIe. These tools are included in an Altium Designer installation:
- Impedance calculation and design rule creation
- Automated differential pair creation and routing engine
- Signal delay and tuning analysis across a large bus
- Routing through any via type, including blind/buried vias
- A built-in simulator for examining signal integrity and crosstalk
- Support for IBIS models and integrations with 3D electromagnetic field solvers
A Data Management Solution in the Cloud
The idea of “data management in the cloud” might sound like an enterprise buzzword, but it gives large companies and individual design consultants the ability to collaborate across disciplines. This means an electrical engineer can send a design to a mechanical engineer through the cloud so that a product can be digitally engineered before production. This is a major productivity boost that hardware development teams rely on to stay competitive and reduce wasted prototype spins.
Altium Designer now offers this type of cloud data management solutions through Altium 365, the industry’s first online platform supporting electronics design with a direct integration into PCB design software. The platform allows design teams to implement workflows for managing component data, project data, and manufacturing outputs in a single platform, complete with a built-in git-based version control system.
Integrations
Developers in the SaaS world know all about the value of integrations, and professional PCB design platforms are offering the capability to integrate with other EDA applications. This includes several options that expand design and analysis capabilities beyond circuit board layout:
- Front-end simulation applications
- 3D electromagnetic field solvers
- Design automation tools from semiconductor vendors
- HDL simulation support for FPGAs
- File format converters between major EDA vendor file formats
- Mechanical design with a PCB (see below)
WIth integrations like this in Altium Designer, an individual designer has a built-in link between their various design tools. Due to the incompatibility of CAD software file formats, these integrations are needed to work in a multidisciplinary environment.
3D Design and MCAD Integration
Probably the most common instance where PCB designers need capabilities found in other engineering applications is in the area of mechanical design. More PCB design applications include 3D design and verification capabilities, where the entire board and its components can be viewed in a built-in 3D viewport. The best tools will support multi-board systems display and flexible PCB displays without relying on an MCAD application.
Mechanical engineers often need to take a PCB and place it into an enclosure or a multi-board assembly in order to verify board interconnects in 3D. This is where MCAD applications are normally used for collaboration. Most design tools force users to export an MCAD file format, but the productivity-focused applications provide a direct link to an MCAD application without export/import of mechanical files.
Altium Designer provides these capabilities through its free-to-use MCAD CoDesigner application. Users aren’t forced into an Altium-specific MCAD application to use these features. Instead, users get a free integration with Solidworks, PTC Creo, and Autodesk MCAD tools for collaboration with mechanical engineers. No other platform offers this kind of vendor-agnostic MCAD integration. Get a full-featured 14-day free trial of Altium Designer to try it for yourself.
About Altium
Altium Designer is the only PCB design software that gives users the complete list of capabilities shown above, and many more. As a market leader in PCB design software, Altium Designer has repeatedly pushed the envelope on productivity in design and data management, acting as a solution for individual designers and large enterprises alike.
For over 35 years, Altium has excelled as an industry leader in PCB design software. Altium helps innovators and manufacturers around the globe design new electronic products faster and more efficiently than ever before. With the addition of Altium 365, Altium’s leading PCB design software creates a seamless experience that unifies design and collaboration across the entire PCB design process. To learn more about Altium Designer, visit our website at www.altium.com.
Related Categories