6 Considerations for Getting Started with Altium 365

We at Nine Dot Connects are elated that Altium offers and promotes products such as Concord Pro and Altium 365. In doing so, they call attention to an important topic, long ignored by most engineering groups - Library Management.

These are indeed powerful tools, but they require a proper configuration. Since both are revision control systems, there is no turning back once put in motion. Careful planning is required to ensure initial decisions do not later hinder the workflow.

This webinar will introduce you to 6 critical considerations while setting up Concord Pro or Altium 365:

• Revision Schemes
  

• Life Cycle Schemes
  

• Folder Structure
  

• Unique IDs
  

• Component Types
  

• Permissions
  

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What's this Vault, AVS, NEXUS, Concord Pro all about?

In 2009, Altium embarked upon an ambitious plan to seamlessly transition the design work to the manufacturing process through a consistent workflow with real-time component information. They recognized that this process must be repeatable, accountable, and traceable. Released in 2011, it became known as 'The Vault.'

With changes to the name, the functionality, and the various offerings over the years, it's been challenging to understand what exactly is NEXUS or Concord Pro. Is it a library database? Is it a repository? Is it a version control system? In short - it's all of them.

This webinar will focus on:

• What it is
  

• How it is structured
  

• What it does
  

No marketing hype, no glossies. Just the facts.

Disclaimer: Nine Dot Connects does not have any affiliation with Altium Inc. This webinar is an independent assessment of the tool.

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Library Migration Example with Concord Pro, Nexus, or Altium 365

To see how we migrate components, check out this video. We use a temporary Excel-based database library, allowing us to control better the parameters and model links during the migration process.

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Migrations and Database Libraries with the Wizard of DB

MS Excel is just as much an engineering tool as an office tool. It is a "bridging" tool used to manipulate data from one program for importation into another program. The same holds for Excel database libraries in Altium Designer. We at Nine Dot Connects lean on Excel database libraries for migrating components into products like Altium 365, Concord Pro, and our product, L9 Manager.

Buried in Altium Designer is a wizard that will convert your integrated libraries into a database library. This wizard has been in Altium since Version 6.x, but was long forgotten when Altium introduced its vault products (a.k.a, Concord Pro, Altium 365, and Nexus).

This wizard can be handy for those who want to migrate their symbol-centric libraries into Altium 365 or Concord Pro. This webinar will take you through the nuances of this hidden cranky old wizard:

• Review of creating Integrated libraries
  

• Navigation of the wizard
  

• Conversion of the Access DB result to Excel
  

• Recommendations for setting up the tables
  

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Salvaging and Restoring of a Functional Library

Have you ever tried to clean up an old company library, or have you taken it upon yourself to create a company library? I'm sure you discovered this is not a quick or trivial task.

The salvaging and restoring of a library are analogous to the waste recycling process. Recycling material must go through numerous steps to sort it, remove impurities, and reform it to a condition suitable for reuse. Libraries are no different. They must be collected from multiple sources (other than just libraries), reviewed for salvageability and usability, sorted into categories, edited for conformity, and eventually packaged into a usable form for general consumption. This must be organized in a structure and process correctly designed right from the beginning.

This webinar will guide you through the process necessary to salvage and restore a library. This is a must-see for anyone trying to get their component libraries on track.

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Rethinking Parameters with Altium's Part Choices

A parameter is defined as name = value. However, its deceptive simplicity becomes a thorny issue for anyone trying to maintain a library. If the names are inconsistent, the columns in the bill of materials will not line up correctly. If the values vary, sorting becomes very difficult. Of course, the more parameters required for a component, the more time it takes to make a part. Let's face it - the formatting is never consistent unless someone follows a company specification meticulously.

Altium introduced the concept of "part choices" some time ago. On the surface, a part choice is just a "super parameter" that has links to datasheets and Octopart; therefore, it can flood the component with parameters. However, it can significantly increase the speed of component creation if we rethink the purposes of parameters.

In this webinar:

• Understand the primary purposes of parameters in a component
  

• What parameters are REALLY needed? (for those of you who wish to keep to "old school" methods)
  

• How Part Choices work
  

• How Part Choices decouple the purposes of parameters in a component
  

• Limitations of Part Choices
  

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Contractor's Loop in Altium 365 and Concord Pro

A benefit of using Altium 365 or Concord Pro is centralizing the company libraries. However, this becomes problematic when:

• Contractors cannot access this library (which is the case with Concord Pro)
  

• Designers have not adopted their company's Concord Pro or Altium 365 deployment and continue to use outside libraries
  

• Older designs are not synced with Concord Pro or Altium 365
  

What will happen when we reconcile a project's components with the libraries in Altium 365 or Concord Pro? In this video, we will walk through the process and look at the result, neither of which, in our opinion, is optimal. This is expected from ANY revision control-based system (not just Altium), where files are being created outside the revision control environment.

This is a must-see for anyone contemplating a project that would take them along the contractor's loop.

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SOS about Library Scrubbing

Altium's marketing push for Concord Pro as a component management system has shed light on the gorilla in the room known as library management. They have motivated design groups to have a much-needed, long-delayed conversation about organizing their libraries. As a result, we at Nine Dot Connects have been fielding many library management questions. We are elated that several companies are seriously addressing this critical topic.

However, there is a misconception that a component management tool will create an organized library by importing existing data. Like any software process, garbage-in equals garbage-out. Regardless of the management system, the components must be prepared and formatted for the new system. More importantly, design team members must agree on how the components will be maintained. In short, a sound component management system relies on a definitive setup procedure and continued consistent maintenance that follows that procedure.

In this video, we will explore:

• The general structure of a library management system
  

• What it takes to scrub a library
  

• Look at the time commitment required to scrub a library
  

• The effort to maintain it thereafter
  

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Database library flows... that do not send you up the creek

Vault, CIS, Arena, Agile, PLM, SQL, Access, Excel...

Regardless of what you call it or from whom you bought it, the heart of all component library management systems is a database. In this webinar, we will explore the concept and flow of a database.

We will focus on the most critical factor in successfully implementing a database - the database's component entry point.

We will use the L9 database management solution to provide insight as we take this journey through a component database library.

You must watch this video if you are looking for ways to improve your existing library configuration or need a better understanding of component library databases. It will be time well spent!

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Library Considerations as Part of DFM

Our prior webinar briefly touched on DFM (Design for Manufacturing) considerations related to libraries. Given its importance in DFM, we believe that this topic needs to be covered in greater detail. Therefore, our next webinar will be focused on the component library.

Though the topic generally applies to any EDA tool, examples will be based on the Altium Designer symbol and footprint editors.

Footprints:

• Mechanical layers - what should be included on each layer and the purpose of the layer
  

• Special cases - inductors, jumpers, and other commonly used footprints that tend to cause difficulties with the netlist
  

• Naming conventions - ensuring that names allow for understanding
  

• 3D - its importance in the libraries and how it impacts the component clearance rules
  

Symbols:

• Parameters - understanding the importance of the name given and the value's format to ensure a BOM that will be complete and correct upon completion of the schematic. We will also cover the key parameters that are critical for part identification
  

• Multi-module components - treatment of the pins and some tips to allow modification to the symbol once in the schematic
  

• General tips to ensure that the symbols help your schematic tell a story
  

This webinar "takes the mystery out of creating a library component."

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Example Robust Libraries

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Libraries Built to Last

Component libraries represent a huge accumulated investment in the design content underpinning every electronic assembly you create. But with many different library management strategies, how do you decide which strategy best suits your organization so that the components and library structure you create today have lasting value?

In this video, we'll examine the common errors made when a library is first being developed, and more importantly, we'll outline the various strategies you can take to ensure that your library infrastructure can grow as your organizational needs evolve. This webinar will help ensure your libraries are built to last by keeping this clear picture of the end in mind.

What you will learn:

• Different library strategies and their implications
  

• How to choose the correct library strategy for your organization
  

• Best-practice component management techniques for each strategy
  

Who should attend?

• Engineering managers
  

• Designers
  

• Component Librarians
  

• Component Procurers
  

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DFM Library Example Download

We decided to pull together a library example to help demonstrate the concepts during the creation process for our recent webinar on DFM library considerations. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so we decided that a good library example should be worth a handful of specifications...

The library contains 34 components of various types, from discrete components to mechanical hardware. All components have been placed on the schematic and their corresponding footprints on a PCB layout sheet to allow you to see the library results when the information is consistent. Also, we wish to highlight the following:

Symbol Library:

• Method of handling the power on discrete logic gates
  

• An method for naming symbols
  

• A method for description information
  

• Key Static parameters
  

• Visibility and order of certain parameters for schematic display
  

Footprint Library:

• Etched components such as an inductor
  

• Courtyard for all footprints
  

• Assembly layer information for all footprints
  

• Thermal pads designed to avoid Via-In-Pad
  

Download Library 6MB

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DbLink Demystified

Tucked away in the File> New> Libraries sub-menu of Altium Designer is a mysterious Database Link file (.DbLink). It is a much-underutilized feature that can significantly benefit those with a company database and have little or no permission to use it directly in the PCB design process. With the proper setup, DbLink can update the parametric data of existing components in the schematic with an external database.

In this video, we will discuss:

• The differences between the DbLib and the DbLink.
  

• How Altium Designer matches components with database information
  

• How to make use of the DbLink file
  

This is a "must-see" for anyone needing to access the company database for its information, design a flexible library for SPICE simulation work, or use SOLIDWORKS PCB.

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Linking Altium DbLink to Excel

In this video, we go through linking a database (in Excel) to a DbLib file in Altium Designer 20. This example addresses multiple footprints and library paths.

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