Altium Material Library

The Altium Material Library dialog

Summary

The Altium Material Library dialog is used to review existing materials, pre-define your preferred layer stack materials and add new material definitions. The material library includes a large array of material definitions. 

Access

The dialog can be accessed from the Layer Stack Manager by choosing Tools » Material Library from the main menus.

Options/Controls

•  /  - click to Undo or Redo the previous operation. Use the down arrows to access a list of prior operations from which you can choose. 
• Units - select the desired units. Supported units are: mil, in, µm, and mm.
•  - click to open the Material Library Settings dialog to select the columns displayed in the dialog.
• Left region - this tree displays the material types available. Click an item to display the details in the grid on the right.
• Grid - this region displays the available materials for the selected item in the region on the left. Click the  in a header to filter the column by selecting the desired filter in the resulting drop-down.
• Load - click to open a dialog to search for and select user-defined materials from an external Material Library Database (*.xml) to load into the dialog.
• Save - click to save your user-specified materials to a Material Library Database (*.xml).
• New - click to add a user-defined material. New material definitions will have their Source property set to User. This button is available provided the material type is selected in the tree on the left.
• Edit - click to edit a selected user-defined material.
•  - click to delete a selected user-defined material.

Tips

1. To use a specific material as a layer in the layer stack, click the ellipsis control () for that layer in the Materials cell in the Layer Stack Manager. This will open the Select Material dialog, which restricts the Altium Material Library dialog to show only materials that are suitable for the layer on which the ellipsis control was clicked.
2. If the Library Compliance checkbox is enabled in the Layer Stack Manager mode of the Properties panel for each layer that has been selected from the Material Library, the current layer properties are checked against the values of that material definition in the library. Any property that is not compliant is marked with an error flag. Re-select the material () to update the values.