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Altium
Altium LLC (ASX:ALU), a global software company based in San Diego, California, is accelerating the pace of innovation through electronics. From individual inventors to multinational corporations, more PCB designers and engineers choose Altium software to design and realize electronics-based products.
The growing demand for smart and connected products is driving advancements in electronics technology. Design trends are demonstrating the need for minimizing power, reducing package size and energy consumption, and prioritizing high-speed design. For over 30 years, Altium has been delivering software that maximizes the productivity of PCB designers and electrical engineers, from idea to board. Users are at the center of Altium’s R&D and business operations. With its unique Business-to-User approach, Altium is focused on developing software that is easy to use and implement, with solutions that enable innovation and deliver industry-leading user productivity.
The industry’s leading PCB design software combining schematic, layout, and everything else you need in one environment to effortlessly design printed circuit boards. Altium Designer System Engineering (SE) is a fully-featured editor for schematics that includes powerful collaboration capabilities and a rich set of schematic capture tools to quickly create, edit, simulate, and document schematics. Software tools to empower and connect PCB designers, part suppliers and manufacturers to develop and manufacture electronics products faster and more efficiently than ever before.
Altium Limited is an American- Australian 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 headquarters in the United States, Australia, China, Europe, and Japan. Its products are designed for use in a Microsoft Windows environment and used in industries such as automotive, aerospace, defence and telecommunications. Its flagship product, Altium Designer, is a software for unified electronics design.
History
1985–1991: Early history
The history of Altium dates to 1985 with the founding of Protel Systems Pty Ltd by electronics designer Nicholas Martin. He was working at the University of Tasmania in the 1980s. He saw an opportunity to make the design of electronics product affordable, by marrying the techniques of electronics design to the PC platform. The company launched its first product in 1985, a DOS-based printed circuit board (PCB) layout and design tool. Protel PCB was marketed internationally by HST Technology Pty Ltd. since 1986.[2]
In October 1986 the San Diego-based ACCEL Technologies, Inc. acquired marketing and support responsibilities of the PCB program for the US, Canada and Mexico under the name Tango PCB. In 1987, Protel launched the circuit diagram editor Protel Schematic for DOS. This was followed by Autotrax and Easytrax in 1988.
In the 1990s, the company began developing a unified electronics design system, which uses a single data model to hold all of the design data required to create a product. FPGA, PCB and embedded software development processes were unified with a common project view and data model. A variety of editing tools could then be used to access and manipulate the design, covering areas such as board layout and design, schematic capture, routing (EDA), testing, analysis and FPGA design.
In 1991, Protel released Advanced Schematic/PCB 1.0 for Windows, the world’s first Windows-based PCB design system. It also began acquisition of various companies with the technologies needed to create a unified electronics design solution,[8] including Accolade Design Automation in 1998.
Products
Altium develops software that is used for designing of electronic products including printed circuit board. Its products are designed for use in a Microsoft Windows environment and used in industries such as automotive, aerospace, defense, and telecommunications.
Altium Designer
Main article: Altium Designer
Altium Designer is a PCB and electronic design automation software package for printed circuit boards. It allows engineers to design and customize their own circuit boards. Altium Designer is considered the flagship software of the company.
Autotrax / Easytrax
Main article: Autotrax
AutoTRAX is the original Protel PCB design software used for DOS, released in the 1980s.
CircuitMaker
Main article: CircuitMaker
CircuitMaker is electronic design automation software for printed circuit board designs targeted at the hobby, hacker, and maker community. CircuitMaker is available as freeware, and the hardware designed with it may be used for commercial and non-commercial purposes without limitations. The first non-beta version was released on January 17, 2016.
Other products
Altium 365 – electronics product design platform that unites PCB design, MCAD, data management, and teamwork.
Altium Concord Pro – Available as part of Altium enterprise solutions. Single source for component data, real-time sourcing information, component traceability within designs, and collaboration tool.
Altium NEXUS – Available as part of Altium enterprise solutions. Team-based PCB workflow solution designed to provide the transparency.
AltiumLive – the cloud-based community that connects Altium designers, collaborators, suppliers, manufacturers and customers.
Altium Vault – Formal release, re-use and design data management server software.
CircuitStudio – PCB design software tool
NanoBoard – reconfigurable hardware development platform.
P-CAD – Obtained through AccelEDA acquisition, retired in 2006.
PDN Analyzer – analyze Power Distribution Network (PDN) voltage and current performance
TASKING – An embedded systems software development tool.