Selectively Waiving DRC Violations

Altium Designer has a powerful and flexible Design Rule Checking system. While it is highly configurable and flexible, there will still be situations where it flags a violation, which, in this specific design situation, is not an issue.

Perhaps you have a connector that hangs off the edge of the board; or perhaps there is an unusually shaped component, that creates a violation with the component next to it, but there is no issue.

In the past, this would be resolved by creating a design rule to target that specific design situation, allowing it to occur. As a busy designer, you might consider this a frustrating time-waster, a special, complicated rule, just for this one situation.

Rather than creating a custom rule, Altium Designer includes a Waive DRC Violation feature, that allows the designer to selectively waive any DRC violation.

Waiving a DRC Violation

DRC violations can be waived by:

• Right-clicking on a one or more violations selected in the Messages panel.
• Right-clicking on one or more violations selected in the Violations region of the PCB Rules and Violations panel.
• Enabling the Waive this violation checkbox in the Violations Details dialog. This dialog appears when you double-click on a violation (or a waived violation) in the PCB Rules and Violations panel.

   Violations can be waived and unwaived (see below) in the PCB Rules and Violations panel.

When you select the Waive Selected Violations command, the Waived Violation Info dialog will open. Edit the Author field, if required, and enter a Reason. Note that these edits apply to all of the selected violations that are being waived.

Against each waived violation, the software records:

• Created At - date and time that the violation was waived.
• Author - if you are signed in to an Altium Vault, this field is automatically populated with the first and last names from the Account of the user currently signed in (System - Altium Vault page of the Preferences dialog), and the value cannot be edited. If you are not currently signed in to an Altium Vault, this field is populated with the first and last names of the Sign In Account currently being used for this seat of Altium Designer (System - Account Management page of the Preferences dialog). In this situation the Author field can be edited.
• Reason - enter a user-defined string of up to XXX characters.

Working with Waived Violations

Waived violations are listed in the lower section of the PCB Rules and Violations panel, as shown in the image below. Note that this section only appears when there are waived violations present in the design.

Waived violations are unwaived in the PCB Rules and Violations panel.

To work with a wavied violation in the PCB Rules and Violations panel:

• Single-click to jump to that violation, if the Zoom option at the top of the panel is enabled.
• Double-click to jump to that violation (if Zoom enabled), then open the Violation Details dialog, as shown below.
• Right-click to unwaive a waived violation(s), or, double-click to open the Violation Details dialog, and clear the Waive this violation checkbox.

The Violation Details dialog includes information about the violation, as well as options for waiving it.

Documenting Waived Violations

Along with the Creation date and Author details, each waived violation can have a Reason recorded in the Waved Violation Info dialog. This detail is included in the Design Rule Verification Report, as shown below.

All the detail for each waived violation is recorded in the Design Rule Verification Report.