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JohnsonMiller , 10-12-2018, 09:42 AM

Hi Guys,

I was just checking AD19, it looks Altium is finally claiming impedance control in stack-up design! What is your experiences? How useful it is? Can we rely on it and replace it with other stack-up design tools?

BR,

robertferanec , 10-12-2018, 10:05 AM

How did you check AD19?

PCB manufacturing is a complex process and only who can give the correct values for impedance controlled tracks is PCB manufacturer. These values can not be just calculated theoretically, but they also need to be adjusted based on PCB manufacturing process and PCB manufacturer experience.

The truth is, maybe the theoretical values can help you to get an idea about the impedance, but I would not use them for routing my boards.

JohnsonMiller , 10-13-2018, 05:51 AM

Dear Robert,

I understand your comment.

But point is that we need some initial values, then doing some simulation, and finally tuning numbers with manufacturers. It was not possible to calculate initial value in old ADs, I was relaying on Mentor Hypelynx, or the tool you have introduced sometime ago.

It looks AD19 is taking one step forward and now you can design your board stack-up and do some layer and via settings and calculate line impedance. However I did more check after sending above message, I was able to check and tune for single ended lines, but no success with differentials! There is no setting for differential line case, it is weird! Probably I am missing a setting.

Other good news is that 3D stack up view is back which help in documentation.

BR,

robertferanec , 10-14-2018, 11:24 PM

@JohnsonMiller, where did you download AD19?

JohnsonMiller , 11-02-2018, 02:56 AM

Hi Robert,

I got it from a local high-bandwidth file server, also I believe available from Altium as well.
It looks that 19.0.6 is just released, but I am not sure it is beta or final.

Regards,

robertferanec , 11-05-2018, 04:40 AM

Yes, I saw beta being available now. It looks like the official AD19 release is planned in December (saw some info in one of my emails).

robertferanec , 11-08-2018, 02:48 AM

Thank you @Oregon101 for this info