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Designers Notebook: Layer Stackup Planning for RF Circuit Boards
Altium Routes Path to Future of PCB Design with Altium Designer 20
December 3, 2019 | Altium LLCEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Today Altium launched the next evolution of easy, modern and powerful PCB design software: Altium Designer 20. Spanning more than two decades of electronic design innovation, Altium Designer 20 improves the design experience with a faster schematic editor, high-speed design and enhanced interactive router capabilities enabling faster board design.
“Most of my design time is spent on routing. The new routing capability in AD20 will save me at least 40% of design time,” said Mark Ross, an Electronics Designer at Progressive Dynamics, Inc. “If I was not already an Altium Designer user, I'd switch just for the new routing capability."
New and advanced capabilities include:
- Best in class 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 - new advanced routing enables users to efficiently design high density and high-speed boards using modern SerDes like PCIe 4.0/5.0, USB3.2, 100G Ethernet and parallel buses like DDR3/4/5.
- Industry-leading 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 - user productivity is dramatically improved with new dynamic compilation capability, providing quick access to data across schematic, layout, BOM generation, design documentation, and other elements of Altium Designer’s unified design environment.
- User-driven quality improvements - AD20 boasts over 200 enhancements suggested by Altium Designer users.
“Altium Designer 20 is a game changer for PCB designers,” said Sergey Kostinsky, CTO of Altium. “The advanced capabilities in this release make it possible to more efficiently design any board, from simple to complex.”
Altium Designer 20 is available now. For the latest product information and how to order visit https://www.altium.com/altium-designer/whats-new.
ABOUT ALTIUM
Altium LLC (ASX:ALU), a global software company headquartered in San Diego, Calif., 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.
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