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Beyond the Rulebook
What happens when the rule book is no longer useful, or worse, was never written in the first place? In today’s fast-moving electronics landscape, we’re increasingly asked to design and build what has no precedent, no proven path, and no tidy checklist to follow. This is where “Design for Invention” begins.
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From the growing role of AI in design tools to the challenge of managing cumulative tolerances, these articles in this issue examine the technical details, design choices, and manufacturing considerations that determine whether a board works as intended.
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I-Connect007 Magazine previews APEX EXPO 2026, covering everything from the show floor to the technical conference. For PCB designers, we move past the dreaded auto-router and spotlight AI design tools that actually matter.
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Altair Releases Altair HyperWorks 2024
July 10, 2024 | AltairEstimated reading time: 3 minutes
Altair, a global leader in computational intelligence, announced the release of Altair® HyperWorks 2024, the market’s leading platform for design and simulation. The latest release delivers significant advancements in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered engineering and business, mechanical and electronics systems design, and simulation-driven design and optimization.
“Altair HyperWorks 2024 is the only platform offering a unified, modern user experience across any geometry, physics, and complexity and at every stage of the product development life cycle from design to in-service,” said James R. Scapa, founder and chief executive officer, Altair. “With AI-embedded workflows, game-changing photorealistic graphics, and a unified back-end data system, Altair HyperWorks is the foundation upon which many of the world’s most innovative digital engineering practices are being built.”
AI-Powered Engineering and Business
Providing the data backbone essential for AI enterprises, Altair HyperWorks 2024 unleashes AI across every step of the product life cycle. Seamlessly embedded AI in design and simulation tools accelerates exploration, while engineer-friendly, HPC-fueled workflows augment the human-AI relationship. Altair HyperWorks 2024 deepens these capabilities, enhancing processes from design to in-service operations, giving users the ability to:
Accelerate design exploration and iteration with generative design capabilities in Altair® HyperMesh®.
Conduct effortless thermal analysis in Altair® SimLab® through 'what-if' studies using real-world data from Altair® physicsAI™ models to make design of experiments (DOE) more efficient.
Rapidly predict behavior with generative design in Altair® Inspire™ to maximize efficiency in both design and manufacturing while ensuring top performance.
Focus more on innovation, benefiting from dramatically faster training times and enhanced AI-powered capabilities. Engineers can train physicsAI models with a single click on Altair Drive utilizing the scalable HPC and cloud resources of Altair One®. This eliminates infrastructure barriers and accelerates design exploration with advances in AI accessibility.
Leading the Engineering User Experience
Altair HyperWorks 2024 brings forth a paradigm shift in engineering. Through an AI-powered, modern experience, productivity is enhanced by intuitive workflows, efficient design environments, game-changing photorealistic graphics for better visualization, and a unified back-end data model. With support for Python and C++, Altair HyperWorks ensures seamless integration with more than 250 CAD systems, solvers, and file formats, removing interoperability bottlenecks while empowering engineers with extensive scripting capabilities to customize the platform and automate repetitive tasks.
One Source of Truth: Digital Engineering
Altair integrates digital twins and digital threads to create a digital engineering ecosystem, providing one source of truth that ensures engineers have access to the most accurate real-time data and models. The latest updates to Altair® Twin Activate® enhance models’ accuracy and clarity and include customization and integration improvements that expedite the transition from concept to reality.
Additionally, Altair® Material Data Center™ augments the design process by offering more than 72,000 high-fidelity, CAE-ready material datasets, empowering alternative material exploration throughout the product development life cycle with one traceable digital thread.
Mechanical and Electronic System Design
Altair HyperWorks 2024 focuses on elevating design fidelity and streamlining engineering workflows with robust integration and automation capabilities. It includes:
- Enhanced productivity with Python API in HyperMesh, empowering engineers to automate routine tasks, tailor their CAE environment with custom plugins, integrate with other tools, and access a vast support network through the Python community.
- Accelerated electronics system design perfection from the start with SimLab. Through the Ultra Librarian integration, users get faster, more accurate 3D printed circuit board (PCB) modeling. Users can predict and enhance PCB lifespan with fatigue life simulations, analyze electric motors using advanced multiphysics analysis, and simulate diverse materials to understand fluid flow dynamics.
- Meshless ECAD simulation with Altair SimSolid®, transforming mechanical and electronics systems into smart, connected realities, from requirements to embedded systems, with new solver capabilities for multi-disciplinary electronics. It empowers users to seamlessly transition from ECAD to simulation, optimizing the analysis of complex PCB and integrated circuit (IC) models without the need for traditional meshing or design simplifications.
Simulation-Driven Design and Optimization
As the most comprehensive simulation-driven design solution for design, performance analysis, and manufacturability, Inspire reinforces its market-leading position. Starting with a sketch, users can build or edit geometries with parametric B-Rep solids, polyNURBS, facets, and implicit modeling. It features analysis tools for structural, fluid dynamics, and motion studies, complemented by designer-friendly computational physics for detailed analysis across various manufacturing processes. Inspire also integrates powerful technologies like generative design, meshless simulation, and physicsAI for rapid behavior prediction, maximizing design and manufacturing efficiency while ensuring top performance.
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Simon Khesin - Schmoll MaschinenSuggested Items
Koh Young Technology Brings Proven 3D Metrology Expertise to the Advanced Packaging Stage at ECTC 2026
04/21/2026 | Koh Young AmericaKoh Young, the industry leader in True3D™ measurement-based inspection solutions, is bringing its battle-tested platform to where that challenge is being solved at the 2026 IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC), May 26–29, at the JW Marriott & The Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes in Orlando, Florida. The advanced packaging industry is demanding a level of inspection precision that traditional metrology simply cannot deliver, and Koh Young is ready to meet that moment.
ACCM Unveils Negative and Near-zero CTE Materials for Large-Format AI Chips
04/21/2026 | Advanced Chip and Circuit MaterialsAdvanced Chip and Circuit Materials, Inc. (ACCM) has launched two new materials: Celeritas HM50, with a negative coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of -8 ppm/°C to offset the positive CTE and expansion of copper with temperature on circuit boards, and Celeritas HM001, with near-zero CTE and the low-loss performance needed for high-speed signal layers to 224 Gb/s and faster in artificial intelligence (AI) circuits.
Advanced Electronics Packaging at APEX EXPO with Matt Kelly
04/20/2026 | Real Time with... APEX EXPOThe first advanced electronics packaging conference at APEX EXPO 2026 was well-received this year with an engaged audience. Matt Kelly, CTO of the Global Electronics Association, says the expanded focus on component and system-level integration fosters unprecedented collaboration across the industry. Also new this year were the Design Pavilion and Technology Theater, which brought commercial value to technical discussions and highlighted the critical role of timely standards development in rapidly evolving sectors such as AI and automotive.
Volatile Metals Market Creates PCB Pricing Headache
04/20/2026 | Nolan Johnson, I-Connect007Market volatility for precious metals is very real. Financial organizations have reported elevated volatility, with record highs and steep corrections; in 2025 alone, gold has increased by over 60%, silver over 120%, and copper over 35%. Each is a critical raw material used in electronics manufacturing, where pricing is already fraught for business owners and their customers due to tariff uncertainty and a critical supply chain that resides mostly in China. The volatility of precious metals markets adds yet another layer of complexity for manufacturers, pushing up raw material costs.
AGC's Advanced PCB Material Solutions
04/17/2026 | Real Time with... APEX EXPOAGC's line includes advanced PCB materials for critical industries such as aerospace, defense, and medical. This interview highlights their commitment to North American sourcing, offering solutions to today's challenges. AGC provides specialized automotive PCB materials including fastRise, a low-loss non-reinforced prepreg designed for high-frequency applications like 77 GHz radar.