SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — With the latest release of its Altium Designer FPGA and pc-board design suite, Altium Ltd. is promising to link pc-board layout with mechanical CAD. Altium Designer 6.6 also promises improved links to manufacturing.
Altium Designer claims to bring together hardware, software and programmable hardware development within a unified environment, allowing all aspects of an electronic product to be designed and managed within a single system. In January 2006, a new release of the product strengthened support for FPGA/pc-board co-design.
The new 6.6 release lets pc-board designers directly import 3D component data through the ISO STEP standard (Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data). The 3D models can be brought into pc-board library files and associated with components. This makes it possible to create representations of pc-boards that can be easily transferred to mechanical CAD applications, according to the company.
The link also lets mechanical designers start their design work earlier, and proceed in parallel with electronic design, according to Altium.
Altium Designer 6.6 also strengthens ties between pc-board design and manufacturing. The system's Assembly Variant Management tool has been upgraded to speed the design of pc-boards used across multiple end products. The 6.6 version adds the ability to vary parameter values by updating from a library, and adds options for handling schematic and pc-board variant printing.
Also new in 6.6 is the ability to "clone" variants, making the creation and management of variants easier. And a new IPC footprint wizard lets users create a range of IPC-compliant component footprints directly in the application.
Altium Designer 6.6 is available without charge for existing Altium Designer 6 license holders. Evaluation versions are available on line.
