-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueShowing Some Constraint
A strong design constraint strategy carefully balances a wide range of electrical and manufacturing trade-offs. This month, we explore the key requirements, common challenges, and best practices behind building an effective constraint strategy.
All About That Route
Most designers favor manual routing, but today's interactive autorouters may be changing designers' minds by allowing users more direct control. In this issue, our expert contributors discuss a variety of manual and autorouting strategies.
Creating the Ideal Data Package
Why is it so difficult to create the ideal data package? Many of these simple errors can be alleviated by paying attention to detail—and knowing what issues to look out for. So, this month, our experts weigh in on the best practices for creating the ideal design data package for your design.
- Articles
- Columns
- Links
- Media kit
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
Digi-Key Partners with Accelerated Designs to Provide Symbols and Footprints for 7.2M Components
November 24, 2015 | Business WireEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Digi-Key Electronics, the industry leader in electronic component selection, availability and delivery, today announced an exclusive, global agreement to distribute software and design data from Accelerated Designs. Accelerated Designs focuses on providing engineers and electronics manufacturers EDA-tool-neutral software and data that improves efficiency of adding and managing new parts when designing circuits and printed circuit boards.
The flagship product of Accelerated Designs is Ultra Librarian, which is used to create and export symbols and footprints in a format that is compatible with nearly any EDA tool depending on one’s license. This enables organizations or teams to maintain a central repository of common components or approved parts lists/libraries (APLs) and allow individual engineers to use nearly any EDA tool they want to create their designs.
“Digi-Key is extremely pleased to sign Accelerated Designs as a supplier. To our engineering customer base, this means you can obtain libraries of symbols and footprints for hundreds of thousands Digi-Key’s parts, indexed with a Digi-Key part number, and compatible with your EDA tool,” said Randall Restle, Digi-Key Vice-President of Application Engineering. “Nearly all popular EDA tools are supported with Accelerated Designs, and Digi-Key remains committed to serving engineers’ decisions by remaining agnostic to the EDA tool platform they choose.”
Ultra Librarian uses the concept of templates to create parts, which increases accuracy, speed, and consistency of part creation and allows global changes to be made to your library. Automation is the key component to the Ultra Librarian tool. It allows the user to build their component accurately one time and then export it to the CAD tool(s) of their choice. Additionally, Accelerated Designs provides the industry’s largest library of components with 7.2 million parts and growing monthly.
“Our aim is to make using parts purchased from Digi-Key as efficient as possible. Accelerated Designs filled the gap that no one in the industry effectively addressed,” said Restle. “Finally, engineers can get a symbol and footprint for a device without having to create them one by themselves.”
He added, “Manufacturers supplying Digi-Key now have a partner that can help reduce a barrier in customers adopting their new devices. By virtue of working with Accelerated Designs to build libraries of symbols and footprints of their newest devices, Digi-Key will automatically distribute those design assets for them and on the web pages where they will be found.”
About Accelerated Designs
Accelerated Designs is an International EDA and PCB Design Services company who have developed a specialist library tool - Ultra Librarian. This can be tailored to fit the needs of an individual or an enterprise with its existing library of over 7 million parts that can be ported to virtually any CAD tool. Accelerated Designs was established in January 2000 and is based Huntsville, Alabama. The founder has over 35 years of experience in the PCB design arena and has spent much of that time creating innovative ways to serve the PCB community and revolutionize library creation. As a company, Accelerated Designs has invested over 15 man years in developing the Ultra Librarian tool.
About Digi-Key Electronics
Digi-Key Electronics, based in Thief River Falls, Minn., is a global, full-service provider of both prototype/design and production quantities of electronic components, offering more than three million products from over 650 quality name-brand manufacturers. With over one million products in stock and an impressive selection of online resources, Digi-Key is committed to stocking the broadest range of electronic components in the industry and providing the best service possible to its customers.
Testimonial
"The I-Connect007 team is outstanding—kind, responsive, and a true marketing partner. Their design team created fresh, eye-catching ads, and their editorial support polished our content to let our brand shine. Thank you all! "
Sweeney Ng - CEE PCBSuggested Items
Ansys 2025 R2 Enables Next-Level Productivity by Leveraging AI, Smart Automation, and Broader On-Demand Capabilities
07/30/2025 | PRNewswireAnsys, now part of Synopsys, announced 2025 R2, featuring new AI-powered capabilities across the portfolio that accelerate simulation and expand accessibility.
Target Condition: The 5 Ws of PCB Design Constraints
07/29/2025 | Kelly Dack -- Column: Target ConditionHave you ever sat down to define PCB design constraints and found yourself staring at a settings window with more checkboxes than a tax form? You’re not alone. For many designers—especially those newer to the layout world—the task of setting up design constraints can feel like trying to write a novel in a language you just started learning.
Zuken to Showcase Defence & Security-Focused Electronic Systems Design Solutions at DSEI 2025
07/24/2025 | ZukenZuken, a global leader in electronic and electrical design automation, will showcase its latest innovations for defence and security systems at DSEI 2025, taking place at ExCeL London from 9–12 September 2025.
Creating a Design Constraint Strategy
07/24/2025 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamMost designers learn how to set their design constraints through trial and error. EDA vendors’ guidelines explain how to use their particular tools’ constraints, and IPC standards offer a roadmap, but PCB designers usually develop their own unique styles for setting constraints. Is there a set of best practices for setting constraints? That’s what I asked Global Electronics Association design instructor Kris Moyer, who covers design constraints in his classes.
Elementary Mr. Watson: Closing the Gap Between Design and Manufacturing
07/23/2025 | John Watson -- Column: Elementary, Mr. WatsonModern PCB designers are not merely engineers or technicians. I believe that PCB design, at its core, is an art form, and modern PCB designers should be considered artists. Beyond the technical calculations and engineering rules lies a creative process that involves vision, balance, and a passion for what we do. Like any artist who works with brush and canvas or chisel and stone, a PCB designer shapes invisible pathways that bring ideas to life. Each trace, layer, and component placement reflects thoughtful decisions that blend form, fit, and function.