Altium Designer (AD) is a

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB), also called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...

(PCB) and

electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools wo ...

software package for printed circuit boards. It is developed by American software company

Altium Limited Altium Limited is an American multinational software company that provides electronic design automation software to engineers who design printed circuit boards. Founded as Protel Systems Pty Ltd in Australia in 1985, the company has regional he ...

. Altium Designer was formerly named under the brand ''Protel''.

History

Altium Designer was originally launched in 2005 by Altium, then named Protel Systems Pty Ltd. It has roots in 1985, when the company launched the

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

-based PCB design tool named

Protel PCB Autotrax was a software application that ran on the DOS operating system on an IBM or compatible personal computer (PC). It was designed by Protel Systems, now Altium, and was one of the first professional printed circuit board computer-aided de ...

(which later emerged into

Autotrax Autotrax was a software application that ran on the DOS operating system on an IBM or compatible personal computer (PC). It was designed by Protel Systems, now Altium, and was one of the first professional printed circuit board computer-aided de ...

and

Easytrax Autotrax was a software application that ran on the DOS operating system on an IBM or compatible personal computer (PC). It was designed by Protel Systems, now Altium, and was one of the first professional printed circuit board computer-aided de ...

). Originally it was sold only in Australia. Protel PCB was marketed internationally by HST Technology since 1986. The product became available in the United States, Canada, and Mexico beginning in 1986, marketed by San Diego–based ACCEL Technologies, Inc., under the name

Tango PCB Autotrax was a software application that ran on the DOS operating system on an IBM or compatible personal computer (PC). It was designed by Protel Systems, now Altium, and was one of the first professional printed circuit board computer-aided de ...

. In 1987, Protel launched the circuit diagram editor ''

Protel Schematic Autotrax was a software application that ran on the DOS operating system on an IBM or compatible personal computer (PC). It was designed by Protel Systems, now Altium, and was one of the first professional printed circuit board computer-aided d ...

'' for DOS. In 1991, Protel released ''Advanced Schematic'' and ''Advanced PCB'' 1.0 for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

(1991–1993), followed by Advanced Schematic/PCB 2.x (1993–1995) and 3.x (1995–1998). In 1998, ''Protel 98'' consolidated all components, including ''Advanced Schematic'' and ''Advanced PCB'', into one environment. ''Protel 99'' in 1999 introduced the first integrated 3D visualization of the PCB assembly. It was followed by ''Protel 99 SE'' in 2000. ''Protel DXP'' was issued in 2003, ''Protel 2004'' in 2004, Altium Designer 6.0 in 2005. Altium Designer version 6.8 from 2007 was the first to offer 3D visualization and clearance checking of PCBs directly within the PCB editor.

Features

Altium Designer's suite encompasses four main functional areas, including

schematic capture Schematic capture or schematic entry is a step in the design cycle of electronic design automation (EDA) at which the electronic diagram, or electronic schematic of the designed electronic circuit, is created by a designer. This is done interac ...

, 3D PCB design, field-programmable gate array (FPGA) development and release/data management. It integrates with several component distributors for access to manufacturer's data. It also has interactive 3D editing of the board and MCAD export to STEP. Altium 365, a cloud-based infrastructure platform, connects all key stakeholders and disciplines for PCB design. This includes mechanical designers, engineers, PCB designers, parts procurement, fabrication, and assembly. Altium 365 hosting allows designers to find, configure and use parts.

File formats

Altium Designer supports import & export of various PCB and

CAD data exchange CAD data exchange is a method of Engineering drawing, drawing data exchange used to translate between different computer-aided design (Computer-aided design, CAD) authoring systems or between CAD and other downstream CAx systems. Many companies us ...

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

s. The tool's native file formats are the binary file formats and . It can also import and export AutoCAD / and

ISO 10303-21 STEP-file is a widely used data exchange form of ISO 10303, STEP. ISO 10303 can represent 3D objects in computer-aided design (CAD) and related information. A STEP-file is ASCII text with the format defined in ISO 10303-21 ''Clear Text Encoding ...

STEP file formats.

References

External links

* , Altium
Altium Designer Overview - PCB Design Tool

What's New in Altium Designer
{{CAD software Electronic design automation software

History

Features

File formats

See also

References

External links