Working with the Short-Circuit Design Rule on a PCB in Altium Designer

Rule category: Electrical

Rule classification: Binary

Summary

This rule tests for short circuits between primitive objects on the copper (signal and plane) layers. A short circuit exists when two objects that have different net names touch.

Constraints

Default constraints for the Short-Circuit rule.

• Allow Short Circuit - defines whether the target nets falling under the two scopes (full queries) of the rule can be short-circuited or not. If you require two different nets to be shorted together, for example when connecting two ground systems within a design, ensure that this option is enabled.

How Duplicate Rule Contentions are Resolved

All rules are resolved by the priority setting. The system goes through the rules from highest to lowest priority and picks the first one whose scope expressions match the objects being checked.

Rule Application

Online DRC, Batch DRC, and during autorouting.

Note

In a Printed Electronics design when different nets cross over on different layers, they are flagged as a short circuit. These cross-overs are isolated by placing a dielectric patch on a non-conductive layer.