Bring the future to your desktop

The process of developing electronics isundergoing some fundamental changes.Changes that are likely to be as significantas those that followed the availability of low-cost microprocessors more than 20 years ago.

The ability to embed whole systems,hardware and software, in low-cost, high-capacity programmable devices(FPGAs) is ushering in a very different view of the design process. Harnessing the opportunities created by this change,and tackling the problems that it raises,are examples of the challenges that must be faced.

At Altium, we are passionate about puttingthe best available design technology intothe hands of every engineer. This is thereason that I formed the company morethan two decades ago, and continues asour driving force today. We're dedicatedto providing systems that not only serveyour current design needs, but also helpyou navigate fundamental changes in theelectronics industry.

Whether you are working alone, as part of a small team, or as part of a largerorganization – whether it's coping with an increasingly 'soft' design environment,or harnessing the power of today'spowerful, low-cost desktop computers –we can help you be successful inelectronic product development and move confidently into the future.

“

Nick MartinFounder and CEO of Altium Limited

“

Our visionHistorically, the most advanced, state-of-the-art

design tools have been prohibitively priced, with

access being limited to engineers based within

the few companies that could afford them.

The Altium vision – unchanged since the

Company's inception – is to break down

these barriers to innovation and technological

advancement and provide every engineer and

system designer with easy access to the best

possible design solutions. Our ultimate goal is

to develop the complete electronics design

system and ensure it is available to every

professional engineer and designer.

This is the driving force behind why our Company

was founded and is still the vision that guides

our strategies today and into the future.

1 – The art of electronic product development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .01

2 – Building the physical platform – PCB design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

3 – Integrating programmable devices with physical design . . . . . . . . . . . .23

4 – Managing components and libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

5 – Moving the design through to manufacture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

6 – Harnessing the power of programmable devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

7 – Managing the entire development process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

8 – Deploying Altium Designer with confidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Contents

Copyright © 2005 Altium Limited. Altium, Altium Designer, Board Insight, CAMtastic, CircuitStudio, Design Explorer, DXP, LiveDesign, NanoBoard, NanoTalk, Nexar, nVisage, P-CAD, Protel, Situs,TASKING, and Topological Autorouting and their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Altium Limited or its subsidiaries. Actel is a registered trademark of Actel Corporation.Altera, Cyclone, Max and Stratix are registered trademarks of Altera Corporation. Xilinx, CoolRunner, Virtex and Spartan are registered trademarks of Xilinx Inc. OrCAD, OrCAD Capture, OrCADlayout, SPECCTRA and Verilog are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc and Windows and Visual SourceSafe are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All otherregistered or unregistered trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners, and no trademark rights to the same are claimed. Page 11 image courtesy of Thales from theAustralian Navy Photography Unit. Page 50 image courtesy of Mattias Ericson, Omnisys Instruments.

1 – The art of electronic product development

Developing the electronicsof a product

In a typical electronic product today, much of

the 'intelligence' of the product is embodied in

the embedded software running on a microprocessor

and the functionality of the large-scale discrete

components connected together on the board.

While software is easily updateable, the discrete

devices hard-wired on the PCB are essentially fixed

once the physical platform is defined.

Microprocessors created a revolution in electronics

development because they allowed portions of the

design problem to be moved into the highly fluid

and easily updateable realm of software. Moving

functionality into the 'soft' realm brings innumerable

benefits to the design process. Critical design

decisions can be made later, products can be brought

to market earlier and then upgraded in the field, and

functionality can be added to the product in software

without adding to the overall product cost.

The recent emergence of low-cost, high-capacity

programmable devices such as FPGAs (Field-

programmable gate arrays) is redefining the

boundaries between software and hardware, and

leading to another shift in how designers think about

adding intelligence to their products. These devices

allow the intelligent portions of the design to

encompass not only software in the traditional sense,

but the soft-wired blocks of hardware implemented

inside the FPGA.

As more of the functionality of products is moved

into the programmable domain, the three main

design processes – board design, programmable

logic design and embedded software development –

become increasingly dependent on each other.

As the design processes converge, the design systems

that engineers rely on to develop products must also

converge in order to maintain design efficiency into

the future.

Creating an electronic

product involves balancing

a number of different

processes that must come

together to meet business

objectives. Projects must

be completed on time and

within budget. As electronic

products become more

intelligent, designers

must become 'smarter'

in the way they develop

products in order to meet

business objectives.

2

Building the physical platform of an electronic product

consists of taking discrete components, wiring them

together at the schematic level and processing the

circuit to provide the connectivity and component

information used to drive the layout and routing of

a printed circuit board. The PCB design is then used

to generate the files needed to fabricate and assemble

the board, provide design documentation and link

to the mechanical design of the casing and other

mechanical parts of the product.

With the increasing use of programmable devices

such as FPGAs, board designers are being challenged

to efficiently integrate these devices at the board

level. Unlike discrete components, the pins on a

programmable device do not have fixed functions.

Indeed one of the features of modern FPGAs is the

plethora of I/O characteristics that can be assigned

to the physical pins of the device and the complete

flexibility in setting the pin functionality.

Keeping it synchronized

While this flexibility has the potential to allow more

design freedom, for example the pin assignments of

the FPGA could be optimized to allow easier board

routing, it also creates problems. Propagating I/O

changes between PCB and FPGA designs manually

creates real headaches for designers and can have

a severe impact on schedules.

As pin counts on FPGAs escalate, the problem of

maintaining synchronization between programmable

devices and the board they reside on is becoming a

real barrier to successful design using these devices.

It is impossible to ignore the penetration of

programmable devices into mainstream design.

Moving forward, it is essential that board-level design

systems provide integration and synchronization with

programmable logic design to allow engineers to fully

harness the potential that such devices bring to the

design arsenal.

The physical electronics platform


3

Conventional embedded design relies on code

running on discrete microprocessors to provide a high

degree of functionality and 'intelligence' to a design.

The software can be easily changed and updated

throughout the development cycle and can be

debugged interactively on the target execution

platform. Microcontrollers offer a range of in-built

peripheral devices that can be used by designers,

along with external discrete components, to create

the system platform for the software.

One of the drawbacks of this approach is that the

physical execution platform must be designed and

prototyped before the software development can

be completed. Also, decisions about the specific

microcontroller to target, the partitioning of functions

between hardware and software and the selection

of discrete peripherals must all be made early in the

development of the product. Changing any of these

physical attributes late in the design cycle can mean

significant re-engineering work.

The changing role of FPGAs

Programmable logic devices have traditionally been

used as a container for the glue logic that binds

the processor to peripheral devices and interface

components that comprise the complete system.

The recent emergence of large-capacity FPGAs at

relatively low cost has the potential to change the

way we think about programmable hardware, and

to redefine the boundaries between hardware and

software. They can be used to implement and

consolidate the various peripheral functions needed

by the processor system, or indeed to include the

processor itself – effectively creating a complete

system platform with programmable hardware.

This effectively makes the software execution

platform as easy to change and update during

development as the software that runs on it.

Functionality can be moved from software into

hardware, and vice versa. Peripheral devices can

be added or taken away from the core processor

to provide complete freedom in system definition.

To harness this potential, the design of the software

execution platform and the development of the

embedded software must move beyond loose

integration and become truly unified. Design systems

must support the movement of peripherals and the

processor itself into the programmable domain,

and provide a flexible hardware-software co-design

environment that intimately links FPGA design

and software development.

“ Altium Designer is afeature-rich, flexible andintuitive design solutionwith no boundaries and a very powerful userinterface. It has enabledus to integrate state-of-the art technology intoour electronic products,which has allowed ANCAto become a world leaderin the CNC Tool andCutter Grinder market.Ian Rees , Electronics EngineerANCA Pty Ltd., Australia

“The programmable elements of a design

4

Our customers

5

The electronic product development process


6

Bringing unity to electronic design

At its core, developing the electronics of a product essentially involves two levels

of design. The first is creating a physical platform using discrete, off-the-shelf

components mounted on a printed circuit board. The second involves the development

of the programmable elements of a design that are 'loaded' onto the physical design

during or after manufacture. Primarily these programmable elements consist of

embedded software running on processing execution platforms within the design,

and configurable hardware implemented in devices such as FPGAs.

As more functionality moves from discrete devices and into the programmable realm,

the various design processes involved are converging. As we move into the future,

efficient electronic product development will require the integration of board design,

programmable logic design and software development, and the bringing together of

the design management processes that oversee them.

is the first unified electronic product development system

that allows you to take a design from concept through to completion within a single

integrated environment.

Building the physicalplatform – PCB design (p.12)

Integratingprogrammabledevices into thephysical design(p.24)

Managingcomponents andlibraries(p.30)

Moving the designthrough tomanufacture(p.36)

Harnessing thepower ofprogrammabledevices(p.42)

Managing the entiredevelopment process(p.54)

Electronic product development is a rapidly changing

playing field. The ready availability of high-capacity,

low-cost programmable devices is opening up new

ways of thinking about design, allowing more

intelligent, lower-cost products to be designed within

shorter development cycles. Traditionally, board-level

design, FPGA design and software development have

been treated as separate, independent processes

each carried out in separate design environments.

Moving into the future, this point tool approach will

increasingly present a barrier to efficient electronic

product development.

At Altium we believe that the future should be

available to every engineer, designer and developer,

and this belief has driven us to create Altium Designer

– a unique and unified system for electronic product

development with the future built in.

Altium Designer provides a single, unified application

that incorporates all the technologies and capabilities

necessary for complete electronic product development.

Altium Designer integrates board- and FPGA-level

system design, embedded software development for

FPGA-based and discrete processors, and PCB layout,

editing and manufacturing within a single design

environment. This, combined with modern design

data management capabilities, makes Altium Designer

the complete solution for electronic product

development – a solution that caters for both

today's and tomorrow's development needs.

Design at the board level

In Altium Designer our proven strength in board-level

system design has been integrated at the platform

level with support for programmable design within

an FPGA environment. This provides a complete and

unified system that can be deployed across all

elements of the electronic product design process.

Altium Designer's board-level design capabilities are

second to none, and allow you to fully define and

implement all physical elements of your design. The

system features hierarchical, multi-channel design

capture, mixed-signal circuit simulation, pre-and

post-layout signal integrity analysis, rules-driven

board layout and editing, manual, interactive and

next-generation Situs Topological Autorouting,

complete CAM editing capabilities and an extensive

range of integrated physical component libraries.

Altium Designer – bringing unity to the design process


7

With Altium Designer you can design the physical PCB platform,create the programmable system hardware and develop theembedded software that make up an electronic product, allwithin a single, unified design environment.

Design with programmable devices

Altium Designer is unique in that it allows you

to change the way you think about developing

electronic products and fully exploit the potential

offered by today's large-capacity programmable

devices. By unifying FPGA design and software

development and using the programmable fabric

of an FPGA as a system platform, you can work

within an easily updateable soft realm where you

can change software and hardware with equal ease.

Altium Designer allows you take advantage of the

benefits to design efficiency and flexibility that this

brings, while leveraging your existing hardware and

software design skills.

Altium Designer provides you with extensive libraries

of FPGA-based components, including a range of

processors and peripherals that allow you to capture

your system design for FPGA implementation at the

schematic level. Using these components, the in-built

embedded software development capabilities and

Altium Designer's integrated environment, you can

effectively migrate system functionality from the board

into programmable devices, allowing you to harness

these devices as a reconfigurable system platform.

What's more, with Altium Designer you are not

locked in to specific target devices. The system is

designed to be FPGA vendor-neutral and allows you

to work with a wide range of target programmable

devices from multiple FPGA vendors. This gives you

the freedom to choose the best device for each

application, and to easily move designs between

different FPGA devices. >>

“ Altium Designer providesmany features for thedesign of state-of-the-arthi-fi audio apparatus. Ithas been evolving withongoing development andoffers us a state-of-the-artdesign environment. Ourservice department alsouses Altium Designer tocreate manuals, since theycan save time by usingthe schematics and PCBdata directly fromdesigners, which is great!Mark M. Suzuki , DirectorEngineering Dept. Accuphase Laboratory, Inc., Japan

“

8

Our customers

Complete electronic productdevelopment

Creating more intelligent electronic products

requires the convergence of different design

processes. Traditionally hard-wired elements are

increasingly moving into the soft-wired realm of

programmable devices. The design of the hardware

platform, the software and the software execution

platform are, by necessity, becoming more closely

linked. Altium Designer unifies the design of all these

elements to create the most productive and complete

electronic product development system available.

With Altium Designer, you are working within

a single, unified environment throughout the

development process. You can effortlessly

synchronize the schematic capture with the

PCB layout, maintain I/O synchronization between

FPGA designs and the boards they reside on,

and automatically ensure consistency of memory

and peripheral definition between the hardware

and software elements of the design.

This gives you unprecedented freedom to

make design changes at any point in the design

process and in any document within the project.

Altium Designer will ensure that the changes are

reflected in all relevant design documents in your

project, ensuring complete design integrity.

Unify your design with Altium Designer.

The emergence of affordable high-capacity programmable devices allows youto move significant portions of your design off the hard-wired platform andinto a 'soft' environment. This has the potential to save design time, simplifythe board design and lower final manufacturing costs.

Altium Designer – bringing unity to the design process


9

Seeing is believing!

Don't just read about the power of Altium Designer –

see it for yourself. Visit the DEMOcenter on the Altium

website at www.altium.com/Evaluate/DEMOcenter to

view on-demand video demonstrations that showcase

Altium Designer in action.

After all, seeing is believing!

At Altium we believe

that the future should

be available to every

engineer, designer and

developer, and this belief

has driven us to create

Altium Designer – a

unique and unified

system for electronic

product development

with the future built in.

2 – Building the physical platform – PCB design

Integrate design capture,layout and verification

Altium Designer unifies the process of board design

by providing a single, integrated environment for

capturing design data, verifying the performance

of the circuit, and designing the PCB. All design

data is managed under a single PCB project within

Altium Designer, ensuring data integrity and

eliminating the need to manually recreate or

propagate design data between different applications.

Altium Designer natively supports the integration

of programmable devices into the physical platform

by unifying the board and FPGA design processes.

Altium Designer lets you achieve optimum board

routing solutions with FPGA devices while automatically

maintaining I/O synchronization. This saves design

time, minimizes errors and potentially lowers

manufacturing costs.

Electronic products are increasing in functionality

and design time is getting tighter. You simply can't

afford to fight with loosely-connected point tools

in order to complete a single project. With

Altium Designer you can take a design from concept

to completion within a single, unified, constraints-

driven design environment. Altium Designer provides

the integration you need to meet today's – and

tomorrow's – physical design challenges.

The printed circuit board

connects together the

discrete components,

connectors and other

hardware that form the

physical platform of the

design. With increasing

component densities,

faster signal speeds and

transitions, and tighter

manufacturing tolerances,

successful board design

today, more than ever,

relies on design systems

that unify design definition

and physical layout.

12

PCB design can be a minefield of conflicting

requirements. High-speed logic, dense packaging

technologies and large-scale programmable devices

place extreme demands on the PCB designer. All

physical design constraints, such as track clearances,

path lengths and trace widths need to be carefully

monitored and controlled to produce a successful

board design.

Altium Designer's powerful rules-driven design,

layout and editing environment gives you full control

over all aspects of the physical implementation of

your circuit. The system helps you create boards that

are correct by design, and ensures the integrity of

design data and compliance with all design constraints

at every stage of the design process from capture

through to board production.

With Altium Designer, we've placed the focus on

the intelligent automation of critical design processes.

Altium Designer peels away the design complexity

and allows you to easily navigate and manipulate your

design data. And the unified nature of Altium Designer

provides seamless integration between the board

design and all other aspects of the design process.

Full constraints-driven design

Being able to effectively define and apply physical

constraints to the board layout is crucial to achieving

high production yields. Altium Designer provides a

comprehensive set of design rules that cover all

aspects of the board design process. From electrical

and routing constraints through to signal integrity,

Altium Designer's hierarchical rules system provides

the power and flexibility to completely control all

crucial parameters in the design.

Set up and management of rules is centralized,

so you can define all your constraints quickly and

efficiently. You can selectively enable or disable

individual rules, and defined rules sets can be

exported or imported, allowing you to propagate rule

definitions between projects and save setup time.

Rules can be defined during design capture and

automatically propagated through to board layout.

Altium Designer dynamically monitors crucial design

rules, such as track width and clearance, as you

route, actively preventing violations. This lets you

concentrate on the routing task – Altium Designer

will take care of rule compliance and help you to

produce error-free boards.

Develop boards that are correct by design


13

Altium Designer's hierarchical rules system and query-based scopingallows you to rapidly and precisely define the physical constraints ofyour design.

Precise design rule scoping

Instead of a set of fixed, pre-defined rule scopes,

Altium Designer features a flexible query system to

define the objects that a rule is applied to. This gives

precise control over rule targeting, and makes the

process of constraining your design fast and efficient.

You can define multiple rules of the same type

targeted to different sets of objects, providing

hierarchical constraint definition. For example, you

can set up rules to route a net at one width on the

top layer, and a different width on the bottom layer

or close the solder mask over the vias on the bottom

layer, but not the top layer.

With Altium Designer you won't have any problems

knowing which rules are being applied to what. You

can navigate through the defined rules and have

Altium Designer highlight the objects targeted, or

simply right-click on an object to find out exactly

which rules are applicable to it.

Maintaining the accuracy of source schematics

PCB re-spins cost time and money, so finding design

errors early is essential. Altium Designer introduces

the concept of project compilation to the capture

process to ensure the integrity and consistency of

the source files within a project.

At any time in the design process you can compile

your schematic project. At each compilation the

hierarchy and connectivity of the project is rebuilt and

verified, and the project is checked for electrical and

drafting errors. The project is automatically compiled

before any critical design actions, such as invoking

interactive project navigation or synchronizing the

schematics with the PCB layout. In this way the

system ensures that you are alerted to errors and

potential design problems as you design.

Altium Designer interactively highlights common

problems, such as duplicate component designators,

directly on the schematic as you work. This allows you

to correct errors as they occur without interruption to

your work flow.

With Altium Designer you can capture your application

with the confidence that your projects will be correct

by design, and that the integrity of your source files is

constantly maintained throughout the design process.

>>“ We have been using Protelfor over 15 years and haveobserved Altium productsgrow in strength to theircurrent high level ofreliability and integration. Altium Designer’sinteractive routing featuresstreamline our designprocess, while polygonpours and split planes helpus create neat andefficient board layouts.Brian SalaDigital Device Development Group, Australia

“

14

Our customers

Complete design synchronization

Design is not a simple linear process. Changes and

updates are often made throughout the design cycle

and it’s easy for the final board layout to get out of

step with the source schematics. This can lead to

inadvertent errors in the design documentation or,

even worse, incorrect manufacturing files.

Altium Designer's unified environment supports full

and automatic synchronization of your entire board

project, and allows you to efficiently manage the

flow of changes between the PCB design and the

source schematics. Synchronization is bi-directional,

so you can manage changes made at both the

schematic and PCB level within a single operation.

You have full control over the direction in which

changes are propagated, and you can fully document

any changes by generating engineering change order

reports during synchronization.

This gives you the freedom to make design

updates at any stage during development, and the

confidence that the integrity of your entire design

project will be maintained from capture all the way

through to manufacture.

Navigating design data

Altium Designer brings clarity to design navigation

with a variety of innovative ways to filter, display and

edit your design data.

You can interactively browse through components,

nets or violations within schematic or PCB

documents, and drill down through the hierarchy

to highlight the individual primitives associated

with objects. As you browse, the graphical display

dynamically zooms to the selected objects and 'dims'

surrounding objects so you can easily focus on just

the pieces of the design you are interested in.

Altium Designer's innovative Board Insight system

turns your cursor into an interactive data mining

tool. As you hover the cursor within the PCB design,

essential information is displayed about the underlying

objects. When multiple objects are stacked, Board

Insight presents you with a graphical list that lets you

easily select or edit the properties of any particular

object under the cursor position.

Fully synchronized with the graphical schematic and

PCB editors are spreadsheet-like list views of your

design data. This provides an alternative editing view

that allows you to sort and filter all objects in the

design. The graphical and list views are dynamically

linked to provide true alternative views of your

design data.

Develop boards that are correct by design


15

Altium Designerprovides an extensiverange of features thathelp you easily navigatedesign complexity.

As designs become more complex, it is necessary to

partition the design into easily-manageable, logical

sections in order to effectively manage the capture

process. The Altium Designer schematic editor

facilitates the capture of designs of any complexity

by supporting a hierarchical approach to design. This

allows you to take both a top-down and bottom-up

view of the overall circuit, and to easily break the

design into functional blocks. There is no limit to

the number of sheets that can be contained within

a project, and the depth of hierarchy is unlimited.

Altium Designer provides easy navigation of the

hierarchical constructs within the schematic project.

You can, for example, automatically synchronize the

connection ports on sheet symbols with the schematic

subsheets they represent. You can navigate connectivity

up and down the hierarchy and trace a single

connection through the entire design.

Altium Designer's hierarchical environment and

extensive design navigation support help you bring

order to the capture process and facilitate a

structured approach to design capture.

Handling repeated circuit blocks

Many designs include extensive blocks of repeated

circuitry. Cutting and pasting circuit segments

achieves the overall design structure, but makes

editing difficult. You need to make repeated edits

to change the circuit or channel structure.

With Altium Designer you can handle repeated

circuitry intelligently within the schematic hierarchy.

You can reference a single subsheet multiple times

by including a repeat parameter in the referencing

sheet symbol. When you compile your project,

Altium Designer will automatically instantiate the

repeated blocks or channels programmatically.

Because the hierarchy is maintained within the

project throughout the capture process, you can

edit the source schematic at any time and recompile

to propagate the edits to all repeated blocks or

change the number of repeated instances.

As you move through to board design, Altium Designer

will automatically propagate channel instantiation

through to the PCB layout. This allows you to layout

one channel and then copy the placement and routing

across the remaining channels.

Altium Designer's intelligent handling of multi-

channel designs minimizes unnecessary editing and

maintains channel hierarchy and integrity throughout

the design process, allowing you to efficiently construct

repeated blocks of circuitry within a project.

16

Bring structure to the design process

Taking a hierarchical approach tocapture allows you to bring structureto even the most complex designs.With Altium Designer you can createdesigns of unlimited sheets andhierarchy depth, with full support formultiple channels and repeated blocksof circuitry.

As you move from capture through to board layout

and routing, Altium Designer supports the propagation

of the hierarchical structure of the project. The system

preserves the functional partitioning of the design

into the physical realm, and makes it easy to

scope physical constraints to drive the layout and

routing process.

You can automatically generate component and net

classes based on the schematic sheet hierarchy, which

you can then use within the PCB editor to create

targeted design rules. Schematic structure can also be

used to drive the creation of component placement

rooms, preserving the logical structure defined within

the source files.

Altium Designer's high level of integration between

schematic capture and PCB design allows design

intent to be preserved and propagated as you move

from the conceptual to the physical phase of the

board design. This smoothes the transition between

capture and layout, and provides a truly unified

design environment.

Complete interactive routing system

A large portion of the board design effort is spent

on routing the connections. As board real estate

shrinks and component and pin densities increase,

the routing challenge becomes tougher. You need

to be able to squeeze the most from every square

millimeter of routing space.

Altium Designer provides you with a complete

interactive routing solution that combines rules-

driven, versatile interactive routing modes, predictive

track placement and dynamically optimized

connectivity to allow you to efficiently tackle any

routing challenge.

Begin routing a net from any starting point – you're

not constrained by the connection order – and

Altium Designer will automatically set the track width

to conform with the specific design rule for that net.

You can constrain routing to 90°/45° corners, allow

routing at any angle, or route with rounded corners –

all these options are easily selectable as you route.

As you near the end of a route, Altium Designer

can automatically and intelligently complete the

connection for you under complete design

rule compliance.

Layout and route the PCB


17

Versatile routing modes

In tight spots you can simply hug existing tracks

and Altium Designer will enforce the defined

clearance constraints, preventing you from creating

rule violations. Or switch modes and Altium Designer

will push existing tracks out of the way, under full

design rule compliance, to make room. To reroute a

track simply route the new path and Altium Designer

will automatically remove redundant copper,

making design rework fast and efficient. Automatic

loop removal is controllable at an individual net

level, allowing you to disable the feature for

particular connections.

To support routing to large BGA devices,

Altium Designer includes an automatic BGA

escape routing function that will fanout and place

stub tracks on all used pins of the device to make

connection paths accessible around the periphery of

the component. This eliminates the time-consuming

task of hand routing through dense BGA components.

The mix of interactive routing features in

Altium Designer provides a complete and unified

interactive routing environment that allows you

to quickly and efficiently tackle any board routing

challenge. Full adherence to design rules at every

stage of the routing supports the constraints-

driven design process to allow you to produce

boards that are correct by design.

Autorouting support

Altium Designer comes equipped with Altium's

Situs Topological Autorouter engine, which is fully

integrated into the PCB editor. The Situs engine

uses topological analysis to map the board space.

Topological mapping provides greater flexibility in

route path determination and allows non-orthogonal

routing corridors to be more efficiently exploited.

Because the autorouter is a unified part of the PCB

design editor, you can run it at any time to route the

whole board, a single net or component, or anything

in between. The full power of the autorouting engine

is always at your fingertips.

Altium Designer also includes full bi-directional

support for the SPECCTRA® autorouter. During export

you can automatically preserve existing board

routing, control the mapping of Altium Designer

via rules to SPECCTRA pad stacks, and propagate

net classes to SPECCTRA to allow efficient generation

of class-based routing constraints.

“ Altium Designer is a veryvaluable tool that helps us through every phase of electronic productdevelopment. Whendesigning complex spacesystems you have to besure that the designsoftware is up for thetask. Altium Designer andAltium's NanoBoard allowus to quickly implementsoft processors in FPGAsthat can withstand theharsh environment spaceelectronics is exposed to.Mattias Ericson, Engineer Omnisys Instruments, Sweden

“

Our customers

18

Increasing clock speeds and fast serial interconnections

are bringing high-speed design considerations into

mainstream board development. High-speed signal

propagation places particular demands on the physical

design. Altium Designer supports high-speed design

with targeted design rules, complete system-level

support for managing differential signals, and

integrated signal integrity analysis.

Altium Designer's extensive rules system allows you

to create constraints targeted towards high-speed

design and differential signaling. For example, you

can set the maximum allowable length of nets,

control the number of vias in a net and match the

lengths of defined nets, automatically adding

accordion segments to traces as required. You can

also specify the maximum allowable parallel run

of traces to avoid crosstalk between nets, and fully-

constrain the physical layout of differential signal

pairs on your board.

Working with differential signals

Differential signaling is increasingly used in

mainstream board design. This is particularly true

for designs that use programmable devices. FPGA

vendors are including extensive LVDS capabilities in

even their lower-cost device ranges. LVDS is gaining

popularity because it not only improves reflection

noise, but also electromagnetic interference (EMI)

and power consumption. Altium Designer provides

system-wide support for differential signaling, and

lets you take full advantage of the LVDS capabilities

offered by today's FPGAs.

You can define differential signal pairs at the schematic

or PCB level – Altium Designer will propagate and

synchronize the definitions throughout the project.

With linked FPGA and PCB projects, Altium Designer

automatically maps a differential signal defined

within the FPGA project to appropriate signal pairs

in the physical design.

Altium Designer's PCB editor includes interactive

routing support for differential signals, allowing you

to simultaneously route both nets of a pair under full

design rule compliance. This provides integrated and

system-wide support for differential signals from

FPGA design right through to PCB layout.


19

Design high-speed circuitry

Altium Designerincludes system-widesupport for differentialsignaling, allowingyou to map LVDS I/Ofrom FPGA projectsthrough to thephysical design ordefine differentialpairs on the boardschematics or PCBlayout. You can alsointeractively routeboth nets in pairsimultaneously under full design rule compliance.

Managing signal integrity issues

The fast edge transitions on modern logic families

are making signal integrity analysis a crucial part of

the physical design process. FPGAs in particular can

present significant problems. The wide range of

programmable I/O characteristics available on these

devices complicates the process of correctly terminating

signal lines to prevent excessive reflections.

With Altium Designer you can perform signal integrity

analysis at the capture stage, as well as during board

layout. This allows you to identify potential problem

areas, determine the correct termination strategy and

add the necessary components to the design before

moving to PCB layout.

With programmable devices, analysis is automatically

performed using the programmed I/O characteristics

of the device. This allows you to easily determine the

affect that modifying parameters such as slew rate

will have on circuit performance.

An integrated termination advisor lets you see the

effect of different termination networks on signal

integrity without the need to directly alter the circuit.

You can then sweep termination component values

to determine the optimum solution for each

connection node.

Full impedance, signal reflection and crosstalk

analysis can be run on your final board to check the

real-world performance of your design after layout is

complete. Signal integrity screening is built into the

Altium Designer design rules system, allowing you to

check for potential signal integrity violations as part

of the normal board DRC process.

“ Altium Designer is mucheasier to use thancompeting software, and Ican’t think of any othercompany that is anywhereclose to Altium insupport. The fact thatAltium Designer has suchan active user communityand Altium engineersmonitor and respond tothe forums is great.Altium tools are theperfect solution for PCBdesigners making thetransition to FPGA design.Dan Bay, President Bay Enterprises, USA

“

Our customers

20

Altium Designer’s signal integrity simulator allows you tocompare proposed termination options and optimize signal quality.

Functional circuit simulation is a useful tool in

investigating aspects of circuit performance during

development. With Altium Designer you don't need

to move to a separate environment in order to make

use of simulation in your design flows. Mixed-signal

circuit simulation is a unified part of the capture

process, and is fully-integrated with the schematic

editing environment.

The Altium Designer simulation engine supports both

standard SPICE 3f5/XSPICE and PSpice® models,

giving you the widest possible choice of component

simulation options.

Altium Designer provides a full array of simulation

analyses, including advanced temperature and

parameter sweeping, Monte Carlo component

tolerance sweeps, pole-zero analysis and noise analysis.

Simulation results are displayed in the integrated

waveform viewer, which gives you a detailed and

accurate picture of circuit performance. You can

perform mathematical post-processing of simulation

results, overlay waveforms, display different

simulation types on a single graph and export the

waveform data.

Perform mixed-signal circuit simulation


21

Altium Designer integrates mixed-signal circuit simulation intothe design capture environment, and provides a powerfulwaveform viewer that lets you fully analyze the generatedsimulation data.


As you read through this

brochure you'll learn about

the numerous ways that Altium

Designer can increase the productivity of your design

team. Well don't just read about it! See Altium Designer in

action for yourself. Visit the DEMOcenter on the Altium

website at www.altium.com/Evaluate/DEMOcenter to

view on-demand video demonstrations that showcase



With Altium Designer

you can take a design

from concept to

completion within

a single, unified,

constraints-driven

design environment.

Altium Designer provides

the integration you need

to meet today's – and

tomorrow's – physical

design challenges.

3 – Integrating programmable devices with physical design

Linking FPGAs with board-level design

The extensive use of FPGAs within a system design

has some compelling benefits, not the least of which

is rapid development cycles. But time saved in the

development of the FPGA circuitry does not

automatically translate to faster time to market for

the end product.

One of the features of FPGAs is that the pin definition

of the devices is configurable. As well as defining the

function of each pin, you can select from a wide

range of electrical I/O characteristics. While this

provides immense design freedom, it also complicates

the process of incorporating these devices onto a

PCB. This can negate much of the time saved in the

FPGA development stage.

Altium Designer solves the problems of working

with large-scale programmable devices by providing

seamless linking of FPGA design projects with the

board design that incorporates them. This allows you

to gain the full benefits that programmable devices

have to offer, and opens the door to a new way of

approaching electronic product development.

Large scale programmable

devices are increasingly

finding their way into

mainstream electronic

product development.

They bring significant

benefits to the design

process, allowing functional

complexity to be moved

from hard-wired devices

into the programmable

realm. Today it is crucial

for design productivity that

these devices be seamlessly

integrated into the physical

design process.

24

Altium Designer provides a unified environment for

the design of both the internal configuration of

programmable devices and the PCB platform that

they reside on. This facilitates complete FPGA-PCB

co-design and enables rapid development of FPGA-

based applications.

Because the projects are linked at the design level,

you can begin the physical design process using a

default FPGA configuration while the FPGA is still in

development. As FPGA development progresses,

updated pin and I/O assignments can be transferred

to the board design project. The physical schematic

representation of the FPGA device is automatically

updated to reflect the updated I/O definitions,

keeping existing connectivity intact. These changes

can then be flowed on to the PCB.

Altium Designer abstracts FPGA design from the

physical constraints used to drive the FPGA place and

route process. This allows you to maintain multiple

FPGA configurations within a single FPGA project. For

example, you can have one configuration targeting

your FPGA development environment and another

for your production board design. This lets you

seamlessly move between development or production

builds of the FPGA and further facilitates concurrent

design of the FPGA and the physical platform.

“ At 20th Century Fox, Post Production Services,there are frequent jobdistractions interrupting the progress of engineeringprojects. Altium Designerallows me to stop at anypoint in the design cycleand rapidly pick up where I left off, without losingtime constantly reviewingmy work. This, and theautorouting speed, enableus to use prototype PCBsrather than relying ontedious hand wiring.Paul Pavelka, Sound Engineer 20th Century Fox, Post Production Services, USA

“Concurrent FPGA and PCB design


25

Our customers

Altium Designer allows youto structurally link FPGAand PCB design projects.This allows you toconcurrently design theFPGA logic and the boardon which the FPGA resides.Altium Designer willautomatically synchronizethe designs to ensure theprojects stay in step.

Managing I/O synchronization

Programmable devices such as FPGAs bring particular

challenges to the board design process. Typically

these devices have a large number of pins whose

I/O characteristics and functions are not fixed, but

determined by the application programmed into

them. Traditionally crucial I/O pins will be fixed by the

FPGA designer, with the FPGA place and route tools

free to assign the remaining pins as necessary.

The result at the board level is a pin configuration

that is generally far from optimal for PCB routing,

and the task of propagating I/O characteristics for

processes such as signal integrity analysis becomes

time consuming and error prone. Because Altium

Designer unifies the process of FPGA and PCB design,

it fully supports I/O synchronization between the PCB

and FPGA projects. This allows you to forward and

back annotate pin assignment changes and

automatically propagate I/O characteristics for signal

integrity simulation and differential pair management.

Achieve optimal routing solutionswith FPGAs

As you deploy FPGAs within the PCB layout, you can

define sets of pins that can be interchanged at the

board level. From within the PCB design you can

manually swap pins to improve routing, or let

Altium Designer automatically optimize the

connection lines for easier board routing. With a few

mouse clicks you can then propagate pin changes

back to the FPGA project, and rerun the FPGA place

and route process with the new constraints. This

allows you to rapidly iterate through PCB and FPGA

routing options to arrive at an optimal system-level

design solution.

The unification of the programmable and physical

elements of an electronic product within

Altium Designer allows you to take full advantage

of the benefits that large capacity FPGAs offer.

Altium Designer allows you to effectively manage

the complexity FPGAs introduce at the board level,

and removes the barriers to their widespread

adoption within mainstream design.

26

Altium Designer allows you to optimize connections on an FPGA device at the board level to facilitate PCB routing, with pin changes automatically propagated back to the boardschematics and FPGA project. This can significantly reducerouting lengths and crossovers, and result in better utilization of board real estate, lower production costs and shorter design cycles.

Many of today's high-density FPGA devices come in

gridded packaging such as BGAs. It is often extremely

difficult or impossible to physically probe pins on

these devices to determine signal status during

system development. This can make physical

debugging of the circuit a difficult challenge.

Altium Designer leverages the JTAG capabilities of

FPGAs to allow you to dynamically investigate the

status of any pins on the device without the need

for physical access to the pins. JTAG boundary scan

allows for transparent monitoring of the signal status

on the device. When your Altium Designer system is

connected to a suitable development board, such as

Altium's device-independent NanoBoard, or your

JTAG-equipped prototype or production board,

the in-built, real-time JTAG Viewer allows you to

easily view the state of all the pins on any JTAG

supported component. This forms part of

Altium Designer's interactive FPGA development

methodology – LiveDesign.

The JTAG Viewer presents you with a footprint and

symbol view of the target device. You can manually

capture a snapshot of the pin status of the device,

or have the display update dynamically as the circuit

operates. You can hide the display of unused pins,

and select any single or group of nets within your

design to focus on. This allows you to easily monitor

the status of just the pins you are interested in.

Pin status can also be dynamically reflected and

displayed on the source schematics for your project

and the PCB layout. This allows you to easily trace

signals throughout the entire design.

With Altium Designer, you can monitor the status

of critical lines in real-time as you exercise the circuit

to determine correct state changes, and easily see

problems such as stuck signal lines. This ability to

easily view the status of the physical pins of an FPGA,

or indeed any JTAG device supported by the system,

provides a valuable aid in debugging your design at

the physical level when working with high pin-count

JTAG-enabled devices such as FPGAs.

Debug JTAG devices at the physical level


27

Altium Designer’s enhanced JTAG Viewer gives you a real-time view of the pin status of JTAG devices such as FPGAs while your circuit isrunning, allowing you to debug system hardware without the need tophysically probe devices.

Altium Designer solves

the problems of

working with large-scale

programmable devices

by providing seamless

linking of FPGA design

projects with the

board design that

incorporates them.

4 – Managing components and libraries

Manage componentinformation

The secret of trouble-free production is having the

ability to manage your component data at all levels

of the design process, and to ensure that the parts

specified are available, meet project costs, and are

sourced from your preferred suppliers. Altium Designer

provides comprehensive component data management

and information resources that allow you to maintain

control over parts usage, regardless of the size or

demands of your organization.

With Altium Designer you have the option to

implement a full database-driven component

information system, providing centralized control

over component data distribution and integration

with your company MRP or ERP systems.

Alternatively, you can deploy stand-alone integrated

libraries that provide component security and

portability when you don't need the power of a full

component information system. This gives you the

flexibility to deploy Altium Designer in a way that best

suits the needs of your particular design processes

and company structure.

Choosing an obsolete or

out-of-stock component

can lead to lengthy

production delays and

cost overruns. These types

of problems are not easy

to identify during design

and may not be picked up

until the project is in the

manufacturing stage.

This can be disastrous

for the overall success

of the product.

30

Altium Designer provides the capability to

dynamically place components directly from a

database library. Data can be accessed from any

ODBC-compliant data source such as a Microsoft®

Access database, Excel spreadsheet, and most

engineering management systems. You can also

connect directly to OrCAD® CIS databases. This

allows you to integrate Altium Designer with your

company procurement and inventory systems, and

provides full control over the selection and

deployment of components within a design.

You can configure the system to bring all relevant

component parameters into the board design as you

place components. This allows you to check critical

component properties, such as availability and cost,

as you design, and ensures that your designs contain

only parts from approved suppliers. Librarians can

ensure that only verified component models are used

by the design team, effectively enforcing design data

integrity throughout the project.

Altium Designer provides full synchronization of

database library data with parts used in your

schematic design. This allows you to generate

accurate Bills of Materials and to verify the availability,

cost and suppliers of all parts in your design at any

time in the design process. During BOM generation,

information can be synchronized and sourced from

both the design files and the component database,

allowing you to include up-to-date part costs and

procurement information in the BOM.

Altium Designer's database library capabilities allow

you to take full control over the management of

component data. You can minimize production

delays caused by out-of-stock items. You can limit

component selection to approved suppliers and

ensure component costs are within project

tolerances. And you can synchronize the design

process with part procurement, inventory

management and manufacturing.

CAD librarians Inventory managers Manufacturing engineers Designers

Parts procurement PCB assembler

Component information management system

Integrated components

Design creation

Bill of materials

Altium Designer component information system

On the flyassembly ofcomponentinformation

Design-specificcomponent informationDynamic data extraction & syncronization during BOM generation

Componentinformation

database tables

Sch PCB

3D Sim Schematic

PCB layout

Simulation

3D modellingComponent model respositories

Implement a database-driven component information system


31

Altium Designer allows you to place parts directly from acentralized database library. Information from the design files issynchronized with the database during BOM generation to ensureaccurate, complete and up-to-date information is passed throughto procurement and manufacturing.

Database-driven component information system

Altium Designer supports design with stand-alone

integrated libraries that consolidate all relevant

models, such as footprints and simulation subcircuits,

for each component in a single library package. This

allows you to compile and deploy self-contained

libraries that are fully-transportable and secure.

While you can work directly with source schematic

and PCB libraries, compiling them into integrated

libraries provides you with a single, secure source for

all necessary component information. You can attach

simulation and signal integrity models, as well as 3D

CAD descriptions of a component. When you compile

an integrated library, all models are extracted from

the sources and merged into a single, portable

format. You can then deploy the integrated library

for use in the end design. Using integrated libraries,

you can maintain the integrity of your source libraries

while providing designers full access to all necessary

component information.

Components in integrated libraries can also include

database-linked parameters. This lets you dynamically

link your integrated libraries to your component

management systems even when you're not using

full database libraries.

Once a design is complete, Altium Designer

allows you to automatically extract all component

information from your project to create a project-

specific integrated library. This allows you to store

complete component data with your project for

archiving, and ensures that you will always have

access to all the original component information

if you need to modify the design in the future.

The versatility and security afforded by Altium

Designer's integrated library format allows you to

control the deployment of stand-alone component

sources, and lets you manage component data

without the need for a full database component

information system.

Design with integrated libraries

32

“ During the five years mycompany used Protel 99 SEwe appreciated the tightly-integrated environmentthat allowed us to easilymove between designtools. The subsequenttransition to Altium Designerwas very easy and wefound the new andimproved features make it a pleasure to use. Ourteam’s productivity hasdramatically improvedthanks to the major featureadvances and its high levelof integration.Dave Miller, Chief Electrical Engineer Arete Associates, USA

“

Our customersAltium Designer provides full schematic symbol and PCBfootprint creation and editing features, allowing you to createcustom library components.

Being able to quickly find a specific component is

paramount to efficient design, and Altium Designer

provides a versatile set of search options that allow

you to pinpoint the component you want with

minimum delay in stand-alone libraries or within

a database-driven component information system.

Installed libraries can be instantly selected

and browsed from within the Altium Designer

library panel. The panel will display the schematic

symbol and any available footprint or 3D model

information as you browse to allow you to quickly

locate a component.

You can search within installed system and project

libraries, or cover all libraries within a defined search

path. Altium Designer supports the use of complex

queries across all component parameters, so you can

find exactly the components you want based on any

relevant criteria. Query results can be browsed in the

same way as individual libraries, with symbols and

footprints dynamically displayed as you move through

the component list.

Altium Designer's integrated and flexible library

search features ensure that you can quickly and easily

locate the components you need from within even

the largest local or database-hosted parts collection.

It is important to be able to maintain up-to-date

information about the various libraries and

components within a system in order to ensure that

all parts are correct and conform to standards. With

Altium Designer you can quickly and easily generate

a comprehensive report detailing all the components

in a specified library.

Reports can be generated as a Microsoft Word

document or in HTML format, and can contain

comprehensive component parameter, pin and

model information and preview images of schematic

symbols, PCB footprints and 3D models. HTML

reports provide a hyperlinked list of all components

in a library, and can be easily deployed on an intranet

or via the web.

Altium Designer library reporting features combined

with support for database-driven and integrated

stand-alone library formats allows complete and

versatile management of all vital component data,

and facilitates the effective and efficient control and

propagation of library information throughout your

entire organization.

Find components easily


33

Generate full library documentation

With Altium Designer you can easily findcomponents in stand-alone libraries or within a database-drivencomponent informationsystem. As you browsethe results, you caninteractively view symbol,footprint and othermodel information.

Altium Designer

provides comprehensive

component data

management and

information resources

that allow you to

maintain control over

parts usage, regardless

of the size or demands

of your organization.

5 – Moving the design through to manufacture

Link design to manufacture

Altium Designer gives you the capability to link the

design and manufacturing processes, and edit and

verify your manufacturing files before they leave your

desktop. This allows you to actively manage the

transition to board fabrication and assembly, and

ensures that your design can be successfully

manufactured.

Altium Designer integrates complete manufacturing

file verification and editing into the design environment,

allowing you to load and inspect all manufacturing

data generated by the system. This allows you to

check for, and automatically fix, a number of

common fabrication problems, such as starved

thermals and solder bridging, before the design leaves

your desktop, and fully-configure the panelization and

rout paths for the board.

By linking design to manufacture, Altium Designer

saves time and minimizes costly design errors. You can

work efficiently with your manufacturing partners to

ensure your manufacturing files are fault-free and

completely ready for efficient fabrication and assembly.

The smooth transition from

design to manufacture plays

a crucial role in the success

of an electronic product.

Delays in component

procurement and

miscommunication with

manufacturers can lead

to delays and cost overruns.

Your product can be late

to market, or miss out

altogether. Altium Designer

helps bridge the gap

between design and

manufacture, and allows

you to actively manage the

generation and verification

of all manufacturing data.

36

map

Manufacturing an electronic product requires a

multitude of output files to be generated. These can

include schematic prints for the handbook, assembly

drawings, fabrication files, drill files, pick-and-place

files, test point reports and the Bill of Materials (BOM).

To manage these outputs, Altium Designer includes

a specialized output job document (OutJob) that

can be added to a project to centralize output

generation. Any number of outputs can be

configured within an output job document,

and multiple output jobs can be added to a single

project. Once you have defined the sets of output

files you require, you can then generate all outputs

in a single batch process.

Because output jobs are stored within the project,

you can easily regenerate output files at any time.

You can work on multiple projects simultaneously,

maintaining independent output configurations and

file sets for each project. Output configurations can

be saved and reused in subsequent projects, allowing

you to set up multiple configurations for different

manufacturers and produce the correctly configured

file set for each fabrication and assembly house.

Typically you will need to work with a variety of

electronics manufacturers, even within a single

project. Prototypes and production runs may be

manufactured in completely different facilities, and

each project will have its unique set of challenges

dictating different manufacturing techniques. In order

to efficiently work with multiple manufacturers, you

must be able to tailor your fabrication and assembly

file formats to suit.

Altium Designer provides a wide choice of outputs

to allow you to generate appropriate files for any

manufacturing requirements. This includes support

for all popular GerberTM formats, with full control over

generated layers and the manual listing or automatic

embedding of aperture information.

Altium Designer also supports the emerging ODB++

manufacturing file format. ODB++ is the most

intelligent CAD/CAM format available today,

capturing all CAD/EDA database, assembly and

PCB fabrication knowledge in one single,

unified database.

NC drilling and routing files, automatic pick and

place files, and all other relevant manufacturing files

can be easily generated, checked and edited from

within Altium Designer, giving you complete

versatility and security in moving your design

through to manufacture.

Centralize output file generation


37

Output a full range offabrication and assembly files

Altium DesignerOutJob files allowyou to consolidatethe generation of all your assembly,fabrication anddocumentationoutputs at theproject level,simplifying themanagement ofoutput filegeneration.

Providing an accurate listing of parts for your project

is essential to efficient procurement and board

fabrication. Altium Designer allows you to completely

configure the information and format of Bills of

Materials (BOM), and generate BOM listings in

a variety of formats.

In Altium Designer, BOM generation dynamically

extracts parts data from your design, including

information from database parts libraries. This

ensures that the BOM is always accurate and delivers

the most current information to your manufacturers.

BOMs can be produced in a variety of formats for

import into virtually any manufacturing system.

Generate your BOM as a formatted XML spreadsheet,

an Excel worksheet based on a defined template, or

basic CSV file. You can even generate the BOM in

HTML format for web distribution.

With all formats you have complete control over

the fields included and the sorting of data. BOM

generation also supports assembly variants, allowing

you to generate data for any defined board variant

without having to manually edit BOM values.

Good documentation in the form of print outputs

of your schematics and PCB layout is essential for

smooth progress through the manufacture and test

process. Altium Designer lets you take complete

control of the print process and generate precise

views of all your design documents.

With Altium Designer you can precisely define the

mix of PCB layers you want to print, set the scaling

and orientation, and see exactly how it will look on

the page before you print it. This allows you to easily

create custom printouts for fabrication proofs,

mechanical output, documentation, assembly, etc.

In each printout you define exactly the layers and

options you want to print. Also, for each printed

PCB layer you can selectively turn off and set the

print mode (draft or final) for each object type. You

can even save a print in the Windows® Enhanced

MetaFile (EMF) graphics format for inclusion in

external reports, manuals and documentation.

You can also include prints of simulation and signal

integrity waveforms in your design documentation,

as well as a range of configurable project reports

that include information such as component cross-

referencing and project hierarchy.

Generate accurate Bills of Materials

38

Document your design

“ It was very important topurchase software which is very user-friendly, andfrom a company that has a reputation for excellentcustomer service. It isdifficult to find in onecompany a high level of all these 4 ingredients:quality, price, after-salesservice and ease of use.Altium Designer possessesall of those up to thehighest level of satisfaction.Yogesh Patel, Design Engineer Sanden Vendo America Inc., USA

“

Our customersAltium Designer provides comprehensive printing support,allowing you to fully document your design. All prints can be previewed to ensure you generate the precise design views required.

The ability to transfer data to and from mechanical

CAD tools is crucial in taking an electronic circuit and

turning it into a finished product. In many of today's

designs board-mounted components such as sockets,

switches, display modules and keypads must mate

seamlessly with cases and mechanical interfaces.

Altium Designer offers extensive interface support

for a wide range of mechanical CAD tools.

With Altium Designer you can import or export both

DXF and native AutoCAD® DWG files directly from

the schematic or PCB editor. Altium Designer also

includes bidirectional support for reading and writing

in IDF, making it easy to bring in board shape

definitions, and transfer out the assembled PCB.

Both the VRML and IGES formats enjoy extensive

support in the 3D mechanical CAD domain.

Altium Designer allows you to include 3D information

for components, such as component body shapes

for automatic extrusion, or full VRML or IGES models.

You can then use Altium Designer's PCB 3D viewer

to render an accurate 3D model of your board, and

export the complete assembly as an IGES file.

As you move from design through to manufacture,

you need to be able to share your design data with

a number of stakeholders who may not be directly

involved in the design process. These can include test

engineers, engineering management, documentation

specialists, manufacturers and clients. Static images

or prints are not easily navigable, and providing

source design files will not be an option unless the

recipients have the application to open them. Not

to mention the security issues!

Altium Designer supports secure collaboration with

all stakeholders by providing a powerful Smart PDF

Wizard that allows you to generate a portable and

navigable view of your schematic and PCB data. With

Smart PDF you can package your entire project or

selected design files as a PDF document that can be

viewed on any system with Adobe® Reader® installed.

The Smart PDF is bookmarked to provide complete

navigation of the design, with the ability to browse

and highlight components and nets in both

schematic sheets and the PCB layout.

To provide a higher level of interaction, Altium Designer

can be licensed as a free Viewer Edition for deployment

in situations where stakeholders need the ability to

open and interrogate any Altium Designer document.

A Viewer Edition license allows read-only access

to Altium Designer files, with full access to the

navigation, querying and reporting features of

the Altium Designer environment.

Smart PDF generation and the Altium Designer Viewer

Edition combine to provide a flexible and powerful

means of collaborating with everyone involved in

bringing your design project to completion.

Interface to mechanical CAD


39

Collaborate by sharing your design data

Altium Designer's SmartPDF Wizard allows you tocreate a fully-portable,navigable PDF documentthat can be read on anysystem. The document isnavigable down to thecomponent and net level.

By linking design

to manufacture,

Altium Designer saves

time and minimizes

costly design errors.

You can work efficiently

with your manufacturing

partners to ensure your

manufacturing files are

fault-free and completely

ready for efficient

fabrication and assembly.

6 – Harnessing the power of programmable devices

The rise of embeddedintelligence

Programmable devices such as FPGAs continue to

rapidly increase in power and capacity as costs for

the devices plummet. Rather than just embedded

software, you can now imbue your products with true

'embedded intelligence' spanning both software and

programmable hardware.

By moving functionality from the board into

programmable hardware, you can shorten design

cycles while adding functionality with little or no

increase in manufacturing costs. The software,

processor and peripheral hardware can all be moved

inside the FPGA. All are easily changeable because

the entire system exists within a 'soft' realm. In this

scenario critical design decisions do not have to be

locked down until later in the design cycle, and the

entire intelligence of the product can be easily updated

right up until the product ships – or even beyond.

The bottom line is the move to a 'soft' design

paradigm gives you the freedom to approach

electronics design in a new way – a way that provides

complete flexibility in functional implementation and

opens the door to creating more intelligent products in

shorter time frames and with lower production costs.

In a typical electronic

product today, much of the

'intelligence' is embodied in

the embedded software

running on a microprocessor.

Consider then the impact of

the emergence of low-cost,

high-capacity programmable

devices such as FPGAs. These

allow the intelligent portions

of the design to encompass

not only software in the

traditional sense, but the

soft-wired blocks of

hardware implemented

inside an FPGA.

42

Moving circuit functionality from the board into

programmable devices such as FPGAs can bring

enormous freedom to the hardware design process.

The logic inside the FPGA can be changed and

reconfigured throughout the design process, freeing

you from the constraints imposed by hard-wiring

components at the board level.

Conventional FPGA tools typically rely on extensive

HDL design experience and a working knowledge of

the architecture of the target programmable device.

Also, sourcing and instantiating large functional IP

blocks can be a challenge, entailing design flows that

are vastly different in concept from working with

off-the-shelf components hard-wired on a PCB.

Altium Designer has been created to allow you to

easily work with programmable devices using the

same skills and convenience currently enjoyed at the

board level. Within Altium Designer you can take

ready-to-use FPGA-based components and wire them

together at the block level within Altium Designer's

schematic editor to create the circuit design. This

allows rapid capture of system functionality for

implementation in an FPGA.

Extensive FPGA component libraries

To facilitate this graphical approach to FPGA design,

Altium Designer includes extensive libraries of ready-

to-use FPGA components. Components range from

generic logic functions such as counters, multiplexers

and various logic gates, right through to complete

32-bit processors and high-level peripheral devices –

all you need to create the entire system functionality

of your design.

FPGA components are supplied as schematic symbols

linked to sets of pre-synthesized, pre-verified models

suitable for implementation on any FPGA device

supported by the system. The components are supplied

on a royalty-free basis, eliminating the difficulty of

sourcing FPGA-based IP from external suppliers and

allowing you to concentrate on the task at hand –

using the components to create your designs.

Within Altium Designer, the ability to simply drag

components from a library and wire them together

to create the FPGA design means that you can

work at a high level of abstraction with

programmable devices. You can harness the

potential of programmable devices without losing

the convenience of working with off-the-shelf,

ready-to-use components.

Design using soft-wired components

6 – Harnessing the power of prorammable devices

43

Altium Designer comes with extensive target-independent FPGAcomponent libraries that allow you to rapidly construct FPGAsystem functionality at the block level.

Target any FPGA

Altium Designer is a completely FPGA vendor-neutral

design environment. Use the supplied components to

construct your system functionality and you can

target the design to a wide variety of FPGAs from

multiple FPGA vendors including Actel®, Altera®,

Lattice® and Xilinx®. This gives you complete freedom

in the specification of your target devices.

What's more, with Altium Designer there is no need

to settle on any particular target device before you

start a design. The system allows you to easily

retarget your design during development to any

suitable FPGA supported by the system.

During design processing, the system automatically

extracts the appropriate models for each FPGA

component in the schematic source files based on

the chosen target. These pre-synthesized models are

then instantiated as 'black boxes' during system

synthesis. Change the target device and you can

reprocess the design for the new FPGA without

having to make changes to the source files.

The ease of migration between programmable

devices means that you can progress system

development on one FPGA, and then retarget the

design to an alternative device for final production.

Another benefit is that you can easily compare the

performance of your system running on different

devices, even devices from different FPGA vendors.

Perhaps the most important advantage is that with

Altium Designer you are not locked in to any

particular FPGA vendor or device family. As new

devices are released, or as device availability and cost

fluctuate, you have the freedom to migrate your

design across devices to capitalize on opportunities

and avoid potential risks. >>

44

“ The combination of Altium Designer and theNanoBoard allows ourdesign team to work in a fully-integrateddevelopment environmentwhich speeds the productto market and enables usto use the most securetechnology available.Without Altium Designerwe could not afford todesign single-chipsolutions for our systems,in terms of either cost ortime-to-market.Max Miller, Technical Products Division Ushio America Inc, USA

“

Our customers

Mix HDL and schematic capture

>> The wide range of FPGA components supplied

with Altium Designer will allow you to create most,

if not all, of the system functionality you require. But

there will always be occasions when you need to

create custom IP blocks, or define particular logic

functionality using a hardware description language.

Altium Designer supports both VHDL and Verilog®

to capture design logic, and allows you to easily

incorporate HDL source files within your overall

system schematics.

Source HDL code can be linked into the overall

schematic design through the use of sheet symbols

that provide a graphical representation of the HDL-

based logic entities, which can be automatically

generated from the source HDL. These sheet symbols

are then placed within the schematic editor and

connected to other sheet symbols and FPGA

components to graphically define system connectivity.

You can also create your own custom FPGA

components from these source files. The system

provides extensive tools to allow you to take blocks

of logic you have defined, and synthesize and process

these blocks into FPGA components suitable for

inclusion in the Altium Designer FPGA libraries. This

allows you to easily expand the functionality available

in the FPGA component libraries and to generate

logic functions that are ready for use in other designs

or by other team members.

Altium Designer features in-built VHDL/Verilog

synthesis, and also allows you to seamlessly use

external synthesis engines such as XST®, Altera and

Synplicity®. Similarly, Altium Designer includes a VHDL

functional simulation engine, and also supports

transparent interfacing to ModelSim® and Active-HDL.

With Altium Designer you can use HDL to capture as

much or as little of the design as you need. You have

complete freedom to mix VHDL and Verilog sources

with schematic-based FPGA components to create

your overall system definition. This allows you to

choose the most appropriate capture method for

each step of the design process.

Design using soft-wired components


45

Altium Designer allowsyou to capture FPGA-based designs using amix of schematic andHDL source files. Thisallows you to takeadvantage of the block-level design to capturesystem structure, whileretaining the flexibility to define blocks of logicusing HDLs.

Test using FPGA-based virtual instruments

One of the key and unique advantages of

Altium Designer is that you can design at the

component level within the programmable fabric of

an FPGA. The FPGA components are supplied as

pre-verified, pre-synthesized blocks and are ready to

use straight from the libraries – you don't need to

verify the functionality of these blocks. You will,

however, want to test the overall functionality of the

system formed by these components.

To do this, Altium Designer provides you with a set

of FPGA-based virtual instruments that can be used

in an analogous way to bench test instruments at

the board level, allowing you to probe and stimulate

interconnections within the system running on

the programmable device. The virtual instruments

are incorporated in your design at the schematic

level and connected to the appropriate nets within

the design.

When the design is processed and downloaded

to the programmable device, the Altium Designer

system communicates with the instruments via a

secondary JTAG chain established within the FPGA.

Soft front panels then allow you to stimulate and

interrogate your circuit interactively, allowing you to

debug problems and verify circuit performance. You

can then make changes to your design, reprocess it

and repeat the testing.

Altium calls this interactive development process

LiveDesign, and it minimizes the reliance on system-

level simulation and allows you to rapidly debug your

FPGA-based system design in a 'hands-on' way. Rather

than simulating the design to see if it should work,

you can run the real hardware and/or software and

test whether it actually does perform as expected.

With its extensive range of virtual instruments and

interactive test environment, Altium Designer brings

the convenience and speed of board-level debug

to the FPGA design process and allows you to

work interactively with FPGA components during

system development.

46

The rise of the microprocessor revolutionized

electronics design by allowing functionality to be

moved from the hard-wired constraints of the board

to the easily-changeable realm of software. This

allowed the 'intelligence' of the product to be

separated to some degree from the underlying

hardware, and provided a development methodology

that allowed more features and functionality to be

embedded into the product without increasing the

hardware cost, component count or board real estate.

The availability today of high-capacity, low-cost

programmable hardware in the form of FPGAs has

the potential to change the way you think about the

design process by allowing you to create both the

software and the execution platform that it runs on

in an easily-changeable and updateable realm. By

moving system processing functionality inside an

FPGA, you can simplify and shrink the board design,

reduce overall system design time and change both

the software and the hardware execution platform at

any time in the design process. You can even update

the entire system in the field, allowing extensive fixes

and feature upgrades to be done without altering the

physical hardware.

FPGA-independent soft processors

Altium Designer offers you a wide choice of processor

platforms, allowing you to work with a range of soft

processors or hybrid hard-processor/FPGA devices. This

means you can choose the appropriate execution

platform for your specific application.

Altium Designer comes supplied with a versatile 32-bit

RISC soft processor – the TSK3000 – and a range of

general purpose 8-bit soft processors. These

processors are target-independent and can be used

on any suitably-sized FPGA device supported by the

system. Like all Altium Designer FPGA components,

the processors are supplied pre-synthesized for a wide

range of target devices.

Altium Designer's TSK3000, internally based on a

Harvard architecture, features a simplified memory

structure and sophisticated interrupt handling to

make coding simpler. It has been specifically designed

to simplify the development of 32-bit systems

targeted for FPGA implementation and to allow

the migration of existing 8-bit systems to the 32-bit

domain with relative ease and low risk. The processor

also simplifies the connection of peripherals with

support for the Wishbone OpenBus architecture.


47

Work with processors and embedded software

Altium Designer allows you to target a range of processors,from target-independent and FPGA vendor-specific softprocessors, hybrid hard processors within an FPGA, and discreteprocessors connected to stand-alone FPGAs. What's more, thesystem provides hardware and C-level design compatibilitybetween supported processors.

Third-party processor support

Altium Designer supports a range of soft processors

supplied by major FPGA device vendors. Because these

processors are targeted and optimized for specific

FPGA device families, these processors can offer a

higher level of performance, but lock you in to specific

target FPGAs. The Altium Designer system includes

special schematic-based components that provide

direct access to these vendor-specific soft processors,

such as the Xilinx MicroBlazeTM, from within the Altium

Designer environment. This allows you to work with

these processors in the same way that you design with

the native Altium Designer soft processors – simply

place the components from the libraries to construct

your system.

In a similar way, you can target hard processors within

hybrid processor/FPGA devices, or discrete processors

such as ARM® and PowerPC devices coupled to an

external FPGA. Altium Designer provides 'wrapper'

core components that are implemented within the

FPGA to interface to the processor. This gives you full

access to the power and performance of these devices

from within the Altium Designer environment.

Easily modify or change theexecution platform

In traditional board-level design flows, the hard-wired

execution platform is defined and fixed early in the

design process. The processor is selected, the

peripherals specified and the partitioning of functions

between hardware and software is tied down at the

start of the design cycle to allow prototype hardware

to be manufactured and software development to

proceed. Discovering late in the design cycle that you

need to implement a function in dedicated hardware

because the processor is running out of steam can

mean major re-engineering and extensive delays in

manufacturing new prototype boards. This can play

havoc with release schedules.

Altium Designer has been created to overcome these

barriers and give you complete freedom to change

both the software and the execution platform that it

runs on throughout the development process. It does

this by allowing you to harness the potential of

large-scale programmable devices to provide a soft-

wired execution platform in which the processor,

peripheral devices and glue logic can all be easily

changed and reconfigured 'on-the-fly' to

accommodate design modifications. >>

48

“ A recent project involvedthe schematic capture ofthe design, design of theembedded firmware, andlayout and routing of an8-layer, 13" x 8" boardand a second smaller PCB.We had to supply five setsof working and testedboards. The customer hadestimated one year tocomplete the project.With Altium Designer wedelivered it in 110 days!Herb Winters, OwnerEfficient Computer Systems, USA

“

Our customers

>> For example, within Altium Designer you

can start development using the included device-

independent 32-bit soft processor and soft peripheral

components. If you subsequently need to improve

the performance of the system in certain respects,

you can migrate specific functions from the processor

to dedicated soft-wired hardware. Alternatively,

you could change to a more highly-optimized FPGA

device-specific soft processor such as those supplied

by the FPGA vendors, or move to a hybrid FPGA that

includes a hard processor core.

Because Altium Designer provides hardware- and

software-level compatibility between processors and

lets you work in a consistent way regardless of the

target, you are free to choose the appropriate

processing platform for your specific application. If

necessary, you can even change processors during

development with minimal system re-engineering.

Connect processor peripherals

Altium Designer simplifies the connection of

processors to peripherals and memory by making

extensive use of the Wishbone OpenBus, an open

source standard that has been specifically designed

for processor/peripheral interconnect within a chip.

The Altium Designer FPGA component libraries

include configurable Wishbone interconnect

components that can be used to connect both

peripheral devices and memory to the processor

core at the schematic level. Once placed, you can

configure these devices directly on the schematic

sheet, adding and defining devices as needed. The

schematic symbol is automatically updated to include

the defined sets of connections. You can then simply

add Wishbone-compatible peripheral and memory

controller devices from the supplied FPGA component

libraries to complete the processor system.

The ease and simplicity that Wishbone OpenBus

brings to system configuration allows you to rapidly

define system functionality, and lets you reconfigure

or add hardware functionality to the execution

platform at any stage of the development process.


Work with processors and embedded software

49

Altium Designer makes the connection of processor peripheralsand memory easy with extensive support for the WishboneOpenBus interconnect standard. Connection components can be conveniently configured on-sheet, making adding peripheralcomponents fast and easy.

Develop and debug embeddedsoftware

Altium Designer's unification of the electronic product

development process extends to the creation of

embedded software running on FPGA-hosted

processors. From within the Altium Designer

environment you can create and edit your code,

compile and simulate your program and undertake

complete source-level debugging on the target system.

Altium Designer includes full compiler tool chains for

all supported processors. The compilers are based on

Altium's advanced Viper compiler framework, which

provides fast, highly-optimized code that is finely

tuned to the target processor architecture. The Viper

technology provides C-level code compatibility across

all processor platforms, allowing you to easily migrate

your application code between processors. This

complements the hardware-level processor

compatibility and facilitates complete system

migration between different execution platforms.

All Altium Designer processors feature on-chip debug

capabilities. When the design is downloaded to a

suitable FPGA development board, such as Altium's

NanoBoard, Altium Designer communicates with the

processors via a secondary JTAG communications

chain established within the FPGA. You can then

debug your software from the source code or

disassembly view, with full control over processor

execution. Altium Designer natively supports the

simultaneous debugging of multiple processors,

allowing independent debug sessions for each

processor running in the design.

By bringing together the development of embedded

software with the design of the execution platform

that it runs on, Altium Designer allows you to take

a new approach to electronic product development.

You can defer critical design decisions until much

later in the development process, you can change

the critical elements of the design throughout

the development cycle, and you can migrate

functionality between software and hardware.

With Altium Designer you have complete freedom

to tailor the design implementation to your specific

embedded application.

50

One of the problems of designing with programmable

devices is that it's difficult to visualize what's going

on inside the device. While you can monitor the pins

of the device, you have no physical access to the

signals within the operating circuit. You are

effectively disconnected from the design.

A unique aspect of Altium Designer is that it

allows you to connect live to the programmable

elements within your design, and interact with the

system under development. With the addition of

a LiveDesign-enabled development board, such

as Altium's target-independent NanoBoard, you

can process and download the design to the FPGA

and dynamically interact in real-time with active

devices such as the processors and Altium Designer's

virtual instruments. Working in this way you can

take an interactive and iterative approach to the

design of systems within FPGAs, minimizing the

traditional reliance on simulation. Altium calls

this process LiveDesign.

To manage the LiveDesign process, Altium Designer

provides a centralized interface from which you can

process and synthesize your project, transparently

invoke the FPGA vendor tools for device-specific

mapping and routing, and download both the

hardware and software program files to the

target devices.

Once programmed, you can interact with active

devices through the interface. You can monitor and

set signals within the FPGA-based system using

virtual instrument 'soft' control panels, and initiate

software debug sessions for all processors running in

the system. As you make changes you can reprocess

and download the new software or hardware and

immediately see the effect of the changes.

At the pin level, you can monitor the I/O status of the

target programmable device and dynamically reflect

this status to the source FPGA project schematics.

Altium Designer can also provide a live display of the

pin status of FPGAs from within the PCB editor.

By providing the appropriate connections on your

PCB design, you can even connect your prototype

or production board to the system via the NanoBoard

and continue the LiveDesign process on your

target hardware.

The interactive nature of the LiveDesign process

brings the entire development process to life, and

allows you to rapidly develop and debug FPGA-based

systems. Altium Designer gives you the power to

reach into and control the programmable elements

of your design, and connects you 'live' to your

system during development.


51

Download and interact 'live' with your design

The bottom line is the

move to a 'soft' design

paradigm gives you the

freedom to approach

electronics design in a

new way, a way that

provides complete

flexibility in functional

implementation and

opens the door to

creating more intelligent

products in shorter time

frames and with lower

production costs.

7 – Managing the entire development process

Bring unity to the design process

The development of electronic products is a juggling

act that balances the drive to embed more and more

intelligence into a design with the time needed to

create, implement and test the application. In order

to compete in this convergent design landscape you

need to be able to efficiently manage projects and

data that transcend traditional tool boundaries.

Navigating product development through a landscape

of loosely-connected point tools creates barriers to

design efficiency, forcing you to work around data

translation and project synchronization issues. Even with

superficial integration between tools, you still need to

deal with multiple design and project management

environments in order to develop a single product.

Altium Designer brings efficiency and enhanced

productivity to electronic product development

by providing platform-level integration of all design

processes, and giving you a unified project and

document management infrastructure that supports

the convergence of traditionally separate design

disciplines. Altium Designer allows you to bring

together the discrete hardware, programmable

hardware and software that make up a system,

and take a design from concept to completion

in less time than has previously been possible.

Physical design,

programmable logic design

and embedded software

development are no longer

independent processes, but

must be efficiently managed

as a single design flow to

achieve design efficiency.

Altium Designer unifies the

entire design process and

allows you to manage all

aspects of development

within a single, integrated

design environment.

54

Altium Designer provides a single, unified environment

for the creation and management of all of the

different project types that go to make up your

complete electronic product. What's more,

Altium Designer allows you to link these projects

to define the overall structure of your design.

The different project types exist in their own right

and can be worked on independently, but are linked

in a logical way. For example, a PCB project is linked

to the FPGA projects for the programmable logic

devices it contains. An embedded software project

is linked to the processor contained in the FPGA

project that defines the execution platform. Because

Altium Designer understands the structural links

between projects, it can intelligently and

automatically manage the flow of essential data

between them.

Change the pin assignment of an FPGA at the board

level, for instance, and Altium Designer understands

that this data must be synchronized with the PCB

source schematics and with the FPGA project

constraints that drive FPGA place and route. You

don't need to manually propagate this data between

different design environments.

Similarly, when you add memory or peripheral

hardware to a processor within an FPGA project,

Altium Designer can automatically generate the C

header files necessary to address this hardware within

the software project.

With Altium Designer, the ability to create and link,

within a single environment, all of the different

projects that go to make up your final product design

brings design efficiencies not possible with traditional

point tools. This efficiency translates into shorter

design cycles and higher productivity for your entire

design team.

Manage all projects within a unified environment


55

A single electronic product development project

can generate literally hundreds of design-related

documents. And each document can go through

many revisions during the course of the development

process. As designs grow in complexity, so does the

need to systematically track and control the storage

and revision of design documents. Increasingly

organizations are implementing document version

control systems to manage this process.

Altium Designer provides comprehensive and versatile

support for linking to external version control systems,

as well as the ability to locally track the history of your

design documents. Altium Designer can interface to

any third-party version control system that supports

the Source Code Control Interface (SCCI), Concurrent

Versions System (CVS) or Subversion (SVN) standards.

This includes commercial systems such as Microsoft

Visual SourceSafe and most popular open source

version control applications.

From within Altium Designer you can add design

documents to any specified repository within the

version control system and perform all common

version control tasks such as document check-in and

version labeling. This allows you to manage your

documents without leaving the Altium Designer

environment.

Even if you don't have a full version control system

operating within your organization, Altium Designer

allows you to easily track the history of documents

within a project at a local level. Each time you

save a file, Altium Designer will automatically

store a copy of the original file to create a full

history of the document changes. You can label

milestone versions and add comments to the history

files to document changes.

In Altium Designer, full support for external

document version control and local document

history management combine to give you flexibility

and security in the handling of your important

design documents.

Manage all your design documents

56

“ As a contractor, I sometimesuse competitive products,but I always try to showpeople how advancedAltium Designer iscompared to what they’reusing. It is absolutely thebest value, it brings a newlevel of system developmentintegration to the electronicdesign community, andAltium gives FPGA designersvendor independence whichallows me to make realcomparisons with the bigthree vendors. Furthermore,Altium’s support is secondto none.Tony Karavidas, OwnerEncore Electronics, USA

“

Our customers

Altium Designer's Storage Manager panel allows you to view andmanage the physical storage of all design documents associatedwith a project and seamlessly work with version control systems.

Maintaining a document's history is one challenge.

But being able to efficiently determine what has

changed between versions of a document is

crucial to efficient management of documents

during development.

While most version control systems allow you to

easily see the differences between versions of text-

based files, graphical documents such as schematic

diagrams and PCB layout files present a whole new

set of challenges. Changes to these types of

documents can be difficult to pinpoint, particularly

where the change does not affect connectivity. For

example, in a PCB layout you may reroute a particular

connection in order to improve signal integrity. On

a complex board, spotting this change is almost

impossible by visually comparing the two documents.

Altium Designer includes a powerful graphical

differencing engine that allows you to compare

file versions on a spatial basis, as well as on the

connectivity level. This allows you to quickly and

easily identify even the most subtle graphical

differences between versions of schematic and

PCB documents.

The comparison features are fully-integrated with

Altium Designer's storage management and

versioning facilities, allowing you to easily compare

your current document with versions in the local

history or version control repository. Or indeed to

compare any two previous versions of a document.

The graphical comparison features combine with

Altium Designer's comprehensive version control

support to provide the capabilities you need to

effectively manage all your design documents, and

maintain the integrity of your design files throughout

the entire design process and across your entire

design team.

Graphically compare PCB and schematic documents


57

With Altium Designer you can easily track down even minor spatial differences between different versions ofgraphical documents.

Altium Designer brings

efficiency and enhanced

productivity to electronic

product development by

providing platform-level

integration of all design

processes, and giving you

a unified project and

document management

infrastructure that

supports the convergence

of traditionally separate

design disciplines.

8 – Deploying Altium Designer with confidence

Your success is our success

At Altium we believe that the success of our

company is ultimately dependent on the success of

our customers. When you invest in Altium Designer,

we make it our priority to ensure that you have the

backup you need to use the system successfully, and

to be successful in bringing your design to market

on time and on budget. What's more, we believe

that this backup should be available to all Altium

customers and not tied to some mandatory high-cost

maintenance contract.

When you deploy Altium Designer you get the

security of knowing that you are investing in a design

solution that is continually developed to keep pace

with changes in design and electronics technology.

Altium Designer is a solution that will carry you into

the future and grow with your expanding requirements.

And most importantly, it's a solution backed by

more than 20 years' experience in the electronic

design industry.

When you deploy

Altium Designer across

your organization, you

not only get the most

productive design system

available, you also get the

security of knowing that

Altium is committed, at

every level, to ensuring

your complete success.

60

At the core of Altium is the belief that every engineer,

designer and developer should have access to the best

possible design tools. That's why we continually

develop our products and constantly add new and

innovative capabilities to our design solutions.

Unlike other design software vendors, we won't

make you pay for every update or feature

enhancement to your product. When you purchase

an Altium Designer license we maximize your return

on investment by giving you free access to regularly-

released service packs. These service packs bring new

technologies, additional device support and

enhanced features to your Altium Designer system

to ensure that you are always kept up-to-date with

the latest design technology.

The Altium Library Development Center continuously

develops new and updated libraries under its

ISO 9000-certified quality assurance program. These

libraries are freely available to all Altium Designer

customers, and ensure you have unrestricted access

to the latest electronic components, packaging

technologies and device models.

Altium's presence on the web provides a hub for

participation in the active community of designers

and developers using Altium Designer. One of the

most valuable resources to your company is the

Altium-hosted online forums that link Altium Designer

customers with one another, as well as with our

product developers, application engineers and

support staff.

These forums provide an extensive and friendly peer

support network, and we encourage all of our

customers to participate in the forums to both gain

from and contribute to the wealth of experience and

knowledge present in the Altium Designer community.

The forums are supported by an extensive online

Knowledge Base and product resources. Browse the

Altium website and you'll find program downloads

and updates, additional examples and reference

designs, updated documentation and tutorials, and

information on programmable devices and third-party

development boards.

The greatest resource we have as a company is

the people that use our software. We are dedicated

to promoting an active Altium Designer community

so that all of our customers can benefit from

this resource.

More than what's in the box


61

Active design community and web resources

Ensuring your success in using Altium Designer to

complete your projects on time and within budget is

something we take seriously at Altium. When you

initially deploy Altium Designer within your

organization, you want your engineers to get up-to-

speed as quickly as possible to ensure continuity of

productivity. That's why we give you three months'

free unlimited phone and email support with every

Altium Designer license.

This gives you instant access to Altium's global

network of direct Sales & Support centers and Value

Added Resellers, whose teams of professional and

skilled support engineers are ready to deal with your

queries at a local level. These engineers are

experienced with both Altium Designer and the

electronic product development process, and can

provide you with timely help on all aspects of the use

of your Altium Designer system.

Our front-line support engineers are backed by

Altium's Global Customer Care team. This worldwide

team provides a top-level resource with direct access

to Altium's R&D resources. The Global Customer

Care team proactively monitors critical support issues

and ensures that the correct resources are made

available to solve your problems in an efficient and

timely manner. They also ensure that all the information

generated at the local level and through the online

Altium forums is captured and fed into Altium's

extensive web-based Knowledge Base, which

provides a valuable resource for all Altium Designer

customers on an ongoing basis.

Our multi-layer support system is specifically designed

to help you overcome any obstacles to successful

electronic product development with Altium Designer.

By doing this, we seek to ensure that you take full

advantage of the design capabilities of the system

and develop your products in the most efficient

manner possible.

Global customer care focus

62

“ A complex ten-layer boardwe developed for a customerrequired two levels of laserdrilling, ‘dog bone’ routingstrategies and layer-specificimpedance matching ofmicrostrips and differentialpairs. Altium Designer’s PCBLayout directives allowed usto very quickly integrateconstraints for track widthsand insulations on thevarious layers so we couldthen find them directly onthe PCB, which saved usseveral days of developmentand removed any risk oferror while routing the board.Frederic Mailles, Design & Production Coordinator Multi Video Designs, France

“

Our customers

We help your engineers, designers and developers

get the most from their Altium Designer system

by offering a complete range of structured training

resources. These resources are designed to get you

productive with Altium Designer in the shortest

possible time.

The training starts as soon as you install the software.

Invoke the online Knowledge Center built into the

software, and a dynamically-updated panel provides

interactive and context-sensitive guidance on the

operation of the system. The online Knowledge

Center tracks what you are doing and provides

specific help with your current task. You can also

access the extensive Altium Designer documentation

library for more in-depth information on the features

and concepts within the system.

Altium Designer also comes with a vast array

of examples that demonstrate the capabilities of

the system. Examples range from simple circuits

designed to highlight specific features, through to

complete reference designs that cover the entire

development process.

To complement the learning resources within the

software, the Altium website hosts extensive, free,

downloadable training materials to allow your

engineers to train themselves at minimum cost,

and then extend this training to others in the

organization.

If you need to take your Altium Designer skills to

a new level, Altium offers regular targeted off-site

training courses delivered by highly-skilled

professionals. These courses cover all aspects of

the electronic product development process with

Altium Designer, and cater to all levels of experience,

from beginner to advanced. Off-site courses

represent a cost-effective way to quickly enhance

the skills of your designers.

When you have a group of engineers to bring up-to-

speed quickly but don't want to send them off-site,

then let us come to you. Your local Altium Sales &

Support Center can arrange for training courses to

be delivered within your workplace, minimizing

downtime for your engineers.

Whatever level of training you require, we have a

solution that will suit your available time and budget

and allow you to maximize the design productivity of

your most valuable asset – your staff.

Flexible training resources


63

Fully-customizabledesign environment

64

Develop full custom add-on applications

“ Thanks to AltiumDesigner’s intuitive design environment andmultitude of functions,creating high-density,multi-layer and high-speed board designs iseasy. Altium Designerperfectly fits with the fast evolution ofconsumer electronics we develop and orderin mass production.Hamid Belaid, Layout Designer NEOTION, France

“

Our customers

Everyone likes to work in a slightly different way, and

Altium Designer accommodates this by allowing you

to completely customize the application interface to

suit the way you want to work, and the screen

configuration of your system.

The Altium Designer interface provides for individual

customization of menus, toolbars and shortcut keys.

In fact, the entire Altium Designer desktop is

configurable. Workspace panels can be docked,

free-floating, stacked in a variety of ways, or set

to collapse when not in use. What's more, multiple

desktop layouts can be saved and recalled, allowing

task-specific customization of the environment.

The flexible positioning of all parts of the interface

allows you to make full use of multiple-monitor

setups. Indeed, the increased productivity afforded

by the additional screen real estate makes multiple

monitors a must for optimum design efficiency.

The flexibility and degree of customization intrinsic

in the Altium Designer interface allows each designer

to create a tailored environment that suits the way

they work as individuals, and promotes optimal

design efficiency.

Altium Designer includes a powerful, in-built scripting

system that gives you programmatic access to all of

the system resources and allows you to customize

your Altium Designer deployment by creating simple

macros or complete form-driven add-on applications.

The scripting system supports multiple scripting

languages such as VBS and JavaScriptTM, and can be

used programmatically to access all features of the

system and create custom interfaces to your company

management systems.

Through the scripting system you have platform-level

access to all processes and design elements within

Altium Designer. The system includes a complete

scripting development and debugging environment

and extensive documentation and examples

for programmers.

In-built scripting support greatly enhances the

flexibility of the Altium Designer system and allows

you to enhance and extend the capabilities of the

system and integrate Altium Designer into your

corporate business systems.

A further layer of flexibility is available in the form

of a complete Software Development Kit (SDK) for

Altium Designer. The SDK provides full documentation

and code templates to allow you to develop add-on

applications for Altium Designer using an external

Windows® software development system.

The flexibility and extensibility provided by the

scripting system and SDK makes it easy to deploy

Altium Designer within your company framework,

and puts in your hands powerful tools to customize

the system to suit your specific needs.

The development of electronic products is a juggling

act that balances the drive to embed more and more

intelligence into a design with the time needed to

create, implement and test the application. The history

of electronics charts a continuous movement towards

designing at higher levels of abstraction in order to

efficiently contend with increasing levels of complexity.

This in turn forces the convergence of design

disciplines as various parts of a complete electronic

system become more dependent on each other.

Altium Designer takes a unified approach to

electronic product development to allow you to

efficiently manage the entire design process. It brings

integration to traditionally disparate design disciplines

and provides a single, unified environment that

transcends traditional design tool boundaries.

With Altium Designer you have the power to

bring together all of the processes that go into

designing the electronics of a product and harness

the potential of the latest technologies and

emerging design paradigms.

Unify the entire design process with Altium Designer.

Get licensed to design

Whether you work on your own, as part of a

small design team, or within a large corporation,

Altium Designer provides a flexible set of licensing

options that allow you to put the right capabilities

on every desktop. Wherever your designers fit into

the electronic product development process,

Altium Designer makes it easy to implement an

integrated design solution that increases productivity

and decreases overall design time.

Altium Designer's licensing options cover front-end

engineering, board-level system design and the

integrated development of embedded product

intelligence using programmable logic devices and

processor platforms. This allows you to effectively

deploy Altium Designer throughout your

organization, regardless of the size and mix of

functions within your design teams.

The free Altium Designer Viewer Edition license adds

to deployment flexibility by allowing you to equip

team members not directly involved in design with

full design document viewing capabilities.

Unify your entire design team with Altium Designer.

Get ready for the future – deploy Altium Designer today


65

66

Make the most of programmable devices

Historically, microprocessors and digital design

paradigms allowed portions of the design problem to

be moved into a highly fluid and easily updateable

realm – software. This enabled some complexity to

be dealt with in a 'soft' environment that was flexible

and easily changeable throughout the design process.

Today the availability of high-capacity, high-

performance programmable devices such as FPGAs at

relatively low cost is shifting the balance again and

allowing previously fixed design elements such as the

processor and its peripheral components and logic

blocks to be moved into a soft domain.

In this increasingly soft future you need to ensure

that your engineers and design systems are capable

and ready to take advantage of the benefits that new

technologies such as FPGAs have to offer.

Altium Designer completely supports system-level

design using FPGAs and processors. What's more,

Altium Designer integrates the design of

programmable elements with the implementation of

these components at the physical level. This allows

you to harness the full potential offered by working

within a programmable environment, and lets you

take a completely new approach to system

development – one that facilitates the development

of more 'intelligent' products in a much shorter time

frame than has previously been possible.

With Altium Designer's unique LiveDesign capabilities

you can reach inside the programmable elements of

your design during development and interactively

debug both hardware and software. You can interact

'live' with signals inside an FPGA, as well as monitoring

the pin status of the devices in real-time. And you

can perform full source-level debugging on processors

running inside or connected to FPGA devices.

Altium Designer is the only system that fully-

integrates physical and programmable design,

allowing complete electronic product development

within a single, unified application environment.

Unify the programmable and physical elements of

your design with Altium Designer.

“ In the 11 years I have beenusing Altium’s software it justkeeps getting better andmore intuitive with everyrelease, which makes mydesign job easier andquicker. I’ve had theopportunity to changeprograms, but in my opinionas a seasoned designer,Altium Designer is the bestproduct in the price range.The Altium team is also oneof the most dedicated I’veencountered, and a pleasureto deal with. Using AltiumDesigner instills confidence inme that my designs produceexactly what I expect.Craig Wiper,Sr. Electronics PCB DesignerGeneral Dynamics-OTS, USA

“

Our customers


Now that you have read about

the enormous benefits

Altium Designer can bring to your design team, why

not see the system in action for yourself? Visit the

DEMOcenter on the Altium website at

www.altium.com/Evaluate/DEMOcenter to view

on-demand video demonstrations that showcase



At Altium, we believe that the future should be

available to every engineer, designer and developer,

and this belief has driven us to create a unique and

unified system for electronic product development

with the future built in.

Altium Designer unifies the development of electronic

products, from physical design and manufacture

through to the development of the programmable

elements integrated into the design. It allows you to

take a complete design from concept to completion

within a single, integrated design environment,

allowing design efficiencies not possible with

traditional design tools.

The electronics industry is a dynamic and rapidly-

changing playing field. New technologies are

continually developed that bring potential benefits to

the development of electronic products. You need

to be ready to take advantage of these benefits in

order to stay successful, and design products that

continue to the meet the evolving demands of

your customers.

Our mission is to make sure that you are completely

equipped and able to keep ahead of emerging design

technologies and trends. That's why we continually

develop and update Altium Designer. We put new

features, capabilities and technologies into your hands

as soon as they are developed. With Altium Designer

you can rest assured that your designers will have at

their fingertips everything necessary to work at the

forefront of electronics design technology.

As electronics technology moves into the future, make

sure you are ready to capitalize on the benefits.

Get ready for the future –

deploy Altium Designer today!

Future-proof your company


67

At Altium we have

taken a unified approach

to electronic product

development to provide

a system that allows you

to meet the future head

on. Altium Designer

incorporates all of the

capabilities needed

for both today's and

tomorrow's electronic

product development

challenges.

North AmericaAltium Inc

17140 Bernardo Center DriveSuite 100San Diego, CA 92128Ph: +1 858 485 4600Fax: +1 858 485 4610Email: [email protected]

GermanyAltium Europe GmbH

Technologiepark KarlsruheAlbert-Nestler-Straße 776131 Karlsruhe, GermanyPh: +49 (0) 721 8244 300Fax: +49 (0) 721 8244 320Email: [email protected]

AustraliaAltium Limited

Level 3, 12a Rodborough RoadFrenchs Forest NSW 2086Ph: +61 2 9975 7710Fax: +61 2 9975 7720Email: [email protected]

JapanAltium Japan K.K.

Resona Gotanda building 7F1-23-9, Nishi-Gotanda,Shinagawa-ku Tokyo 141-0031 Ph: +81 3 5436 2501Fax: +81 3 5436 2505Email: [email protected]

SwitzerlandProtel AG (A subsidiary of Altium Limited)

Unterdorfstrasse 1CH-4334 Sisseln Ph: +41 (0) 62 866 41 11Fax: +41 (0) 62 866 41 10Email: [email protected]

ChinaAltium Information TechnologyShanghai Co., Ltd.

Unit 13B, Hua Du MansionNo 838 Zhang Yang RoadPudong, Shanghai 200122Ph: +86 21 6876 4016Fax: +86 21 6876 4015Email: [email protected]

For a full list of Altium resellers visit www.altium.com

Altium offices worldwide

www.altium.com

2190

AD

BR

AC

PGE

OOO "ЕвроИнТех" 109387, Россия, Москва, ул. Летняя, д. 6 Телефон/факс: +7-(495)-749-45-78 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.eurointech.ru

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