Altium Launches New Version of PCB Design ECAD Software

Altium LLC has announced a new version of the firm’s PCB design software, Altium Designer 20.

San Diego-based Altium LLC has announced a new version of the firm’s PCB design software, Altium Designer 20, at the Altium Live conference in San Diego, October 9th. According to the company, the new release is a major upgrade to the software’s design environment and user experience. Designer 20 is intended for individual and team projects, single or multi-board systems and encompasses the entire design process from logic to bill-of-materials. The system allows users to create schematics and PCB layouts, run circuit simulations, select components and source them from various manufacturers, and document their designs for manufacturing.

Advancements in the latest release include:

  • Interactive routing – new “push & shove’’ capabilities enable routing of complex HDI boards and speed-up design times by over 20%, even for simple printed circuit boards. 
  • New high-speed PCB routing capabilities – users can efficiently design high density and high-speed boards that utilize DDR3/4/5, 100 GBit ethernet and SerDes PCIe 4.0/5.0.
  • Multi-board design – the latest release leverages ActiveBOMTM capabilities, including supplier search, BOM rule checking, and live part choices, for multi-board assemblies. Users can also export 3D PDF files of the multi-board assembly allowing collaborators to view and manipulate 3D assemblies.
  • New high-voltage design capabilities – for applications where high-voltage design is critical (e.g. spacecraft, high-altitude aircraft, and high-tech lasers), AD20 provides new creepage rules that help maintain high-voltage clearances across the PCB surfaces for prevention of electrical arcing hazards for power supply and mixed-signal device designs. 
  • Enhanced user experience – faster, dynamic compilation of data across schematic, layout, BOM generation, design documentation, and other elements for improved user productivity.

The new release includes over 200 enhancements suggested by Altium Designer users. Altium Designer 20 will be available to customers in the fourth quarter of 2019. For the latest information see https://www.altium.com/altium-designer/

About Altium

Altium LLC (ASX:ALU), a global software company based in San Diego, California, and develops products for PCB design.Products include Altium Designer, Altium Concord Pro, Altium 365, Altium NEXUS, CircuitMaker, CircuitStudio, Octopart, and TASKING. 

Written by

James Anderton

Jim Anderton is the Director of Content for ENGINEERING.com. Mr. Anderton was formerly editor of Canadian Metalworking Magazine and has contributed to a wide range of print and on-line publications, including Design Engineering, Canadian Plastics, Service Station and Garage Management, Autovision, and the National Post. He also brings prior industry experience in quality and part design for a Tier One automotive supplier.