Introduction to Track Glossing in Altium Designer 17

Altium Designer 17 introduces an exciting new PCB design feature called track glossing. Track glossing allows you to easily create professional-looking, high-quality PCB layouts by automatically optimizing track routing and applying glossy finishes to copper traces.

Track glossing works by analyzing your PCB layout and applying a series of optimization passes to smooth out track routing, eliminate acute angles, and ensure consistent trace widths and spacings. The result is a PCB layout that looks polished and professionally designed, even if you’re not an expert PCB designer.

In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at how track glossing works in Altium Designer 17, explore its benefits and limitations, and walk through some examples of using track glossing to create high-quality PCB layouts. Whether you’re a seasoned PCB designer or just getting started with Altium Designer, this article will give you a comprehensive overview of this powerful new feature.

How Track Glossing Works in Altium Designer 17

Track glossing in Altium Designer 17 is a multi-stage process that automatically optimizes your PCB layout for aesthetics and manufacturability. Here’s a high-level overview of how track glossing works:

1. Routing Analysis: Altium Designer analyzes your PCB layout to identify all the copper traces and their connections to components and vias.

2. Angle Reduction: The first optimization pass attempts to reduce acute angles in your track routing. Acute angles can cause manufacturing issues and signal integrity problems, so Altium Designer will automatically adjust track routing to use more gradual angles wherever possible.

3. Trace Optimization: The next pass optimizes trace widths and spacings for consistency and manufacturability. Altium Designer will attempt to use consistent trace widths wherever possible and ensure that all traces meet your design rules for minimum width and spacing.

4. Glossing Application: With track routing optimized, Altium Designer then applies a “glossing” effect to all copper traces. This involves slightly rounding the corners of traces and applying a smooth, reflective finish to the copper.

5. Final Check: Finally, Altium Designer performs a final design rule check to ensure that your glossed PCB layout still meets all your design requirements for manufacturability, signal integrity, etc.

The entire track glossing process is automated and can be completed with just a few clicks in Altium Designer 17. You can also fine-tune the track glossing settings to control exactly how much optimization and glossing is applied to your PCB layout.

Benefits of Using Track Glossing in PCB Design

Using track glossing in your PCB designs offers several key benefits:

1. Improved Aesthetics: The most obvious benefit of track glossing is that it makes your PCB layouts look more professional and polished. Glossed traces have a smooth, reflective finish that catches the eye and gives your PCBs a high-tech look and feel.

2. Better Manufacturability: Beyond aesthetics, track glossing can also improve the manufacturability of your PCB designs. By reducing acute angles and ensuring consistent trace widths and spacings, track glossing makes your PCBs easier to manufacture with fewer defects and higher yields.

3. Automated Optimization: Track glossing automates many of the tedious and time-consuming aspects of PCB layout optimization, such as adjusting trace widths and spacings for consistency. This can save you a significant amount of time and effort, especially on complex designs with hundreds or thousands of traces.

4. Customizable Settings: While track glossing is automated, you still have full control over how much optimization and glossing is applied to your PCB layout. Altium Designer 17 includes a variety of settings that let you fine-tune the track glossing process to suit your specific design requirements.

5. Non-Destructive Editing: Perhaps most importantly, track glossing is a non-destructive editing process in Altium Designer 17. This means you can easily experiment with different track glossing settings without permanently altering your PCB layout. If you don’t like the results of track glossing, you can simply undo it and try again with different settings.

Limitations of Track Glossing

While track glossing is a powerful and useful feature, it’s important to understand its limitations:

1. Not a Substitute for Good Design Practices: Track glossing is not a magic bullet that can fix all your PCB layout problems. It’s still important to follow good PCB design practices, such as properly defining your design rules and constraints, and carefully planning your component placement and routing strategy.

2. Limited to Copper Traces: Track glossing only affects the copper traces in your PCB layout. It does not apply to other PCB features such as component pads, vias, or silkscreen markings.

3. May Not Work for All Designs: Track glossing may not be suitable for all types of PCB designs. For example, designs with very high-speed signals or strict impedance control requirements may not benefit from track glossing, as the glossing process can slightly alter trace geometries and affect signal integrity.

4. Requires Additional Processing Time: Applying track glossing to your PCB layout does require some additional processing time in Altium Designer 17. For very large and complex designs, this processing time can be significant, so it’s important to factor this into your design workflow.

Track Glossing Examples

To help illustrate how track glossing works in practice, let’s look at a few examples of using track glossing in Altium Designer 17.

Example 1: Simple Arduino Shield

In this example, we have a simple Arduino shield PCB that we want to optimize with track glossing. Here’s what the PCB looks like before track glossing:

As you can see, the PCB layout is functional but not particularly aesthetically pleasing. The traces have inconsistent widths and spacings, and there are some acute angles that could cause manufacturing issues.

Now let’s apply track glossing to this PCB layout with the default settings in Altium Designer 17. Here’s what the glossed PCB looks like:

The difference is quite striking! The glossed traces have a smooth, polished finish that makes the PCB look much more professional. The trace routing has also been optimized to reduce acute angles and ensure consistent widths and spacings.

Example 2: Complex Multi-Layer PCB

In this example, we have a more complex multi-layer PCB with a variety of components and signal types. Here’s what the PCB looks like before track glossing:

This PCB layout is already quite good, but we can still improve it with track glossing. Here’s what the glossed PCB looks like:

The glossed PCB has an even more polished and professional appearance, with smoother traces and more consistent routing throughout the design.

FAQ

To wrap up this article, here are answers to some frequently asked questions about track glossing in Altium Designer 17:

What types of PCBs benefit most from track glossing?

Track glossing can be used on almost any type of PCB design, but it tends to have the most impact on designs with complex routing and a large number of traces. Simpler designs with fewer traces may not see as much benefit from track glossing, as there is less room for optimization.

Can I use track glossing on designs with high-speed signals?

Yes, but you may need to be careful about how much glossing you apply. Track glossing can slightly alter trace geometries, which can affect impedance and signal integrity for high-speed signals. It’s a good idea to run signal integrity simulations on your glossed PCB layout to ensure that it still meets your design requirements.

How do I control the amount of glossing applied to my PCB layout?

Altium Designer 17 includes a variety of settings that let you control the track glossing process. You can adjust parameters such as the minimum and maximum trace widths, the amount of angle reduction applied, and the degree of glossing effect. Experimenting with these settings allows you to find the right balance of optimization and glossing for your specific design.

Can I apply track glossing to just part of my PCB layout?

Yes, you can selectively apply track glossing to specific areas of your PCB layout using the area selection tools in Altium Designer 17. This can be useful if you only want to optimize certain sections of your design, or if you want to apply different glossing settings to different areas of the PCB.

Will track glossing affect my design’s manufacturability?

In most cases, track glossing will actually improve your design’s manufacturability by reducing acute angles and ensuring consistent trace widths and spacings. However, it’s always a good idea to double-check your glossed PCB layout against your manufacturer’s design rules and guidelines to ensure that it meets their requirements.

Conclusion

Track glossing is a powerful new feature in Altium Designer 17 that can help you create professional-looking, high-quality PCB layouts with ease. By automatically optimizing trace routing and applying a glossy finish to your copper traces, track glossing can save you time and effort while improving the aesthetics and manufacturability of your designs.

Whether you’re a seasoned PCB designer or just getting started with Altium Designer, track glossing is a feature that’s well worth exploring. With its customizable settings and non-destructive editing capabilities, track glossing gives you the flexibility to experiment with different optimization and glossing options until you find the perfect balance for your specific design needs.

So why not give track glossing a try on your next PCB design project? With Altium Designer 17’s powerful tools and intuitive interface, you’ll be creating glossy, professional-looking PCBs in no time!