Building & Maintaining Your Components and Libraries

An electronics design is a collection of connected components. The rewarding part of product development is coming up with cool ways of solving those engineering challenges, connecting those components to craft your unique design.

However, a large part of the work, and to many designers the more tedious part, is creating the components. While it might not be exciting, the components become a valuable resource for your company, and it is essential that they accurately represent the real-world component.

The component that you buy and solder onto the board is the real component, but that component has to be modeled in each of the electronic design domains in which you want to use it.

Depending on what type of design implementations you plan to perform, your component could include a symbol for the schematic, a simulation model for the circuit simulator, an IBIS model for signal integrity analysis, a pattern or footprint for PCB layout, and a 3D model for visualization, 3D clearance checking and export to the mechanical CAD domain.

Read more about Understanding Models, Components and Libraries.

Models

Each component is a collection of linked models, and parametric component data. It is the models that contain the detailed information needed by each design domain.

The following models types can be used:

Schematic symbol	The symbol represents the component on the schematic sheet. The symbol is created using standard drawing objects, the pins add the electrical properties.
SPICE model	Simulate the behavior of the connected components using the SPICE simulator. SPICE models are usually sourced from the device suppliers.
Signal Integrity model	PCB interconnects are becoming part of the circuit as device and circuit switching speeds increase. IBIS models describe the pin behavior, allowing Altium Designer's signal integrity simulator to analyze the routes.
PCB footprint	Each component needs to have a place defined on the PCB where it mounts and connects - the footprint is the model that defines that PCB space. A PCB footprint is created from a set of standard objects, with the pads providing the connectivity.
3D model	Today's electronic product is compact and tightly packed, comes in an unusual shape, and may well have a PCB that is folded to fit into the case. To design a product like this you need to be able to model the PCB in 3D - so you can visualize the finished board, perform 3D clearance checking, and transfer the loaded board to the mechanical CAD domain. To do this, you'll need a 3D model of each component.

The Understanding Models, Components and Libraries page includes links to learn more about creating models.

Components

So how do the models come together to create a component? There are essentially three approaches:

• Use a server - the models and parametric component data is brought together as a managed component, complete with live links to suppliers.
• Link each of the model-kinds to the schematic symbol and add suitable component parameters; the symbol then becomes the component.
• Use a database library (DBLib) - each record is a component, referencing the required models and parametric component data. The model links and parameters are added to the symbol during placement, turning it into a standard Altium Designer component.
• Regardless of the storage option, the model links and parametric data is added to the symbol, creating the design component.

Read more about The Component.

Managed Components

The benefits in using managed components are vast. Some of the advantages are:

• Company-certified design components - components are released into a managed content server for re-instantiation into a design project. Revision-controlled and lifecycle-managed, a company can authorize the 'set' of components that can be formally used by their designers.
• Design-time choice of physical components - for any given managed component, you can choose which manufacturer parts can be used to implement that component when assembling the board.
• Real-time supply-chain information - fed back from the aggregate parts database of the Altium Parts Provider (which itself interfaces to and gathers the parts from enabled Suppliers) to let the designer know the current costing and availability of the chosen parts, and from all vendors that sell those chosen parts (as defined in the managed content server's local Part Catalog).
• Use of Component Templates - apply parameter and component taxonomy based templates, so each new component type automatically has the correct BOM-compliant parameter set in addition to automating the correct naming, revision and lifecycle schemes.
• Where-used Component Traceability - managed components can be traced all the way through usages: if a part goes obsolete, you can explore in which designs it was used to know which ones need to be updated. If a symbol or footprint has an error, you can see all the components that use that symbol and footprint so you can fix them.
• Component Lifecycle Validation - if a component is in an “end of life”, “obsolete”, or “abandoned” state, you will be warned before trying to manufacture boards that use it.
• Direct Component Editing - if a managed component needs to be edited, you can open it for editing directly from within your managed content server. A temporary instance of the Component Editor allows you to edit all aspects of that component, including modifying its referenced domain models without a file-based document in sight.

Read more about Managed Components and Working with Managed Components. 

File-based Libraries

An Altium Designer library is an arbitrary collection of models or components. How the models or components are organized into libraries is up to you. You might structure your libraries around device suppliers, or you might cluster components by function, for example, with a library for all of the microcontrollers your company uses.

The following library types are available:

Read more about The Libraries.

Where to Next?