Altium provides way forward for Cadence? Allegro? users
New Allegro PCB file importer for Altium Designer makes it easy to
design next-generation ?smart? devices
SYDNEY, Australia ? June 4, 2008 ? Altium has announced a new file importer for its
award-winning Altium Designer unified design system that allows Allegro files to be easily
brought into Altium Designer.
Altium Designer automatically and transparently converts Allegro binary files to an
intermediate ASCII text format that is then parsed and imported into an Altium Designer
PCB design document and project. The translator supports Allegro Version 15.2 and 16
files. (Allegro must be installed on the designer?s system for this to happen.)
Altium believes that all designers must have access to the best possible design
technologies if they are to remain competitive into the future.
Providing good import tools makes it easy for designers to move from older-style legacy
point tools to Altium Designer, so that they can future-proof the design capabilities of the
companies they work for and stay competitive in a rapidly changing market.
Altium provides the only unified design solution: one that brings together hardware,
software and programmable hardware development within a single unified environment.
It allows designers to unlock the potential of large-scale programmable devices as a system
development and deployment platform, creating programmed device intelligence that can
be deployed in multiple hardware domains.
?Allegro users now have an easy way to move into Altium?s unified electronics design
environment. This gives them access to powerful new features: 3D visualization of the
board during design; dynamic linking to MCAD files; single data model between schematic,
board, FPGA and embedded design; and overall project and data collaboration and
management capabilities,? said Nick Martin, CEO and founder of Altium. ?Indications are
growing within the electronics design industry that point tool solutions, regardless of the
quality or otherwise of the specific job they do, are becoming less viable as a means to
move into the future. Companies are looking for new ways to innovate and sustain
differentiation in their field, and companies are recognizing the benefits our unified design
solution offers to help them achieve this.?
SpaceX, the commercial space launch system developer, has found the design process
much simplified since moving from Allegro to Altium Designer. Altium Designer offers a
much greater level of version control, and SpaceX can better manage its design
development. Altium Designer?s features mean that the simplest modifications are
automatically adjusted in all previous board and schematic work: SpaceX has a flexible
and reliable development and documentation process for SpaceX?s catalogue of PCB
designs.
Matt Soule, a senior engineer at SpaceX, said, " Altium?s unified design environment is
intuitive and has made managing projects trouble free. In just two weeks I was able to
learn the tool, design my board, and have a fully assembled PCB ready for test. Altium
Designer is an incredibly flexible and capable tool."
The latest release of Altium Designer is available now. Contact Altium, or go to
www.altium.com/summer08 to see Altium?s Allegro Wizard in action, and to book a live
web demo.
ENDS
About Altium
Altium Limited (ASX:ALU) provides unified electronics design solutions that help designers
create the next generation of electronic products. Altium?s solutions let designers focus on
innovation, not on overcoming barriers in design and enable the latest technologies and
devices to be harnessed. Altium?s solutions are unique because they unify the separate
processes of electronics design, all within a single electronics design environment, working
off a single data model, which links all the aspects of electronics design into one process.
Founded in 1985, Altium has headquarters in Sydney, Australia, sales offices in the United
States, Europe, Japan, China, and resellers in all other major markets. For more
information, please visit
www.altium.com.
Altium, Altium Designer, LiveDesign, and their respective logos are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Altium Limited or its subsidiaries. All other registered or
unregistered trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners,
and no trademark rights to the same are claimed.
PADS?/OrCAD? importer
Designers moving from legacy systems, such as an OrCAD? schematic + PADS? PCB editor combination can now easily transfer their valuable libraries and design files into Altium Designer.
The new importer, accessed via the Import Wizard, imports the OrCAD? schematic symbols and PADS? footprints (Patterns), adding them to a new Altium Designer Library Package ready for compiling into an Altium Designer integrated library. The importer also supports importing OrCAD? schematics and PADS? PCB documents in a single operation to create an Altium Designer PCB project.
This importer provides a straight-forward and robust methodology for managing the transfer of legacy designs into Altium Designer.