Dan’s Biz Bookshelf: 'Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future'
The Chemical Connection: Managing Cumulative Process Variations for Fun and Profit
It’s Only Common Sense: Speed Is a Strategy that Wins Customers
Introducing Octopart Discover: From Part Search to Solutions Discovery
March 11, 2026 | AltiumEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Octopart, an Altium company, introduced Octopart Discover, the next evolution of Octopart that brings design intent and persistent system context into solutions discovery — moving engineers beyond part search to discovering and evaluating system-fit solutions. Octopart Discover will be showcased at Booth 3A-415 during embedded world.
Built as an open platform, Octopart Discover brings solution intelligence from partners across the electronics ecosystem into the context of what engineers are building. Starting with system intent — functional blocks, constraints, and requirements — it quickly narrows options to viable options that truly fit.
“A part number is not the starting point — it’s the endpoint,” said Don Cantow, General Manager of Altium. “Octopart Discover keeps intent and context connected so engineers can explore system options and converge faster. For partners, it turns reach into in-context presence — showing up as blocks take shape, trade-offs are evaluated, and options narrow.”
Bringing Intent and Context Into Discovery
With Octopart Discover, engineers begin by defining the system and aligning discovery to real design requirements, not isolated keywords. Options are narrowed to what truly fits the architecture, with prior decisions and constraints carried forward at every step.
As engineers search, compare, and refine, Octopart Discover retains established context so results remain aligned to earlier choices. When requirements change, adjustments can be made without restarting.
By staying connected to live design context, Octopart Discover creates a meaningful shift left in development, bringing intelligence to decision-making at the earliest stages of ideation, when architectures, constraints, and tradeoffs are first defined. This is where cost structures are set, performance ceilings are established, and reliability is designed in — not validated later.
The result is a discovery experience that goes well beyond a database and feels more like a design-aware guide, transforming early-stage exploration into structured engineering progress.
An Evolution of Octopart — The Logical Step
Octopart has long played a critical role in electronics by bringing together highly dispersed component data and transforming it into information that engineers and procurement professionals can use. This has made part searches fast, accessible, and reliable.
That need has not gone away, but electronics development has evolved. Systems are more complex. Supply chains are more volatile. Lifecycle, availability, and price constraints matter earlier. Upstream decisions have an outsized downstream impact.
Sourcing visibility alone is no longer sufficient.
Octopart Discover is the next logical step — built on the same trusted foundation, evolving to context-driven discovery for the way electronics are designed today. This is not a reinvention, but a logical progression.
An Open Platform Built for the Ecosystem
Modern electronics development spans a broad ecosystem, and no single vendor has the full picture. Octopart Discover is built for how modern electronics design actually happens: across tools, across domains, and across partners.
Because design happens inside tools and not in isolation, Octopart Discover is built to work with CAD, PLM, and data partners to keep discovery tied to functional blocks, constraints, and trade-offs as the design evolves.
For semiconductor manufacturers and distributors, that means more than visibility or marketing reach. Octopart Discover enables partners to be present and participate directly in active design exploration.
Octopart Discover helps partners:
- Position solutions in context, aligned to real design intent
- Drive deeper engagement through solution-level assets, not just part pages
- Improve conversion from interest to evaluation and selection, supporting more design wins
Share on:
Testimonial
"We’re proud to call I-Connect007 a trusted partner. Their innovative approach and industry insight made our podcast collaboration a success by connecting us with the right audience and delivering real results."
Julia McCaffrey - NCAB GroupSuggested Items
Altium’s EDDI Report Tracks Components’ Availability—Today and Historically
09/15/2022 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamThere’s one lesson that all designers have learned over the past few years: Components might be here today and gone tomorrow, so tracking your parts is more important than ever. Any resources that help you keep tabs on your required parts are invaluable in these days of 40-week lead times. Earlier this year, Altium released one such resource: the Electronic Design to Delivery Index (EDDI) report. Assembled from millions of bytes of data gleaned from the Octopart search engineer and the Nexar platform, the monthly EDDI report provides part availability histories going back years, as well as a real-time snapshot of global inventories.
Nexar Announces Massive CAD Model Marketplace
06/16/2022 | Nexar, a business unit of Altium LLCNexar, a business unit of Altium LLC, announced today the launching of the Octopart CAD Model Marketplace, a free database made up of a massive repository of computer aided design (CAD) models for electronic components. Octopart, part of the Nexar ecosystem, is an electronic component search engine powered by part data and intelligence from the Nexar API. Octopart’s new CAD Model Marketplace simplifies PCB design and part selection workflows to create a single unified user experience that aggregates CAD models.
Nexar, SnapEDA Announce Partnership to Increase CAD Model Library Collections in PCB Design Workflows
12/02/2021 | Business WireNexar, a business unit of Altium LLC announced that SnapEDA has joined Nexar’s growing ecosystem of electronics innovators. As a Nexar partner, SnapEDA will make available their library of computer-aided design (CAD) models to enhance printed circuit board (PCB) design and innovation.
Dan Schoenfelder: Searching for Parts in Real Time
02/15/2019 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamThe I-Connect007 editors recently sat down with Dan Schoenfelder, vice president of business development at Octopart. We discussed online parts libraries and the impact they can have on choosing parts based on availability data during the design process.
Altium to Acquire Octopart and Ciiva
08/21/2015 | AltiumAltium Limited has announced the acquisition of two industry-leading electronic parts content and search providers, Octopart and Ciiva. A definitive purchase agreement has been signed to acquire Octopart, a provider of electronic parts data and specialized inventory search.