Altium Designer

Overview

Altium Designer's argument has always been unification. The schematic, the board, the library, the simulation, the mechanical model and the manufacturing output all live in one project and one environment, rather than being handed between three programs that each have their own opinion about what a net is. On a complex board that coherence is worth a great deal, because the majority of expensive mistakes in this discipline happen at a handoff.

The layout side is genuinely strong. Interactive routing that pushes and shoves existing traces, differential pair routing with proper phase matching, length tuning with accordion patterns generated to a target, and a rules engine granular enough to express what a real fabrication house actually requires. This build carries the full feature set with the libraries included and the licensing already applied.

Schematic capture and libraries

Schematics are hierarchical with sheet symbols, named ports and harnesses for grouping related signals, which keeps a large design navigable. Multi channel design lets a repeated block be drawn once and instantiated many times, with the layout replicated across channels afterwards, which on a board with eight identical audio channels turns a week into an afternoon.

Components carry a symbol, a footprint, a three dimensional model, simulation parameters and supply chain information as one unified object, so choosing a part means choosing all of it rather than assembling it from four sources. The library management understands vaults and version control, which matters when several people work on the same component set.

Design rule checking runs against the schematic as well as the board, catching unconnected pins, conflicting outputs and net name mistakes before any of it reaches layout. It sounds unglamorous and it prevents the largest single category of respins.

Layout, routing and high speed work

Interactive routing is where the program earns its reputation. Traces push existing ones aside rather than refusing to place, corners follow the mode you set, and the router walks around obstacles predictably instead of producing surprises. For high speed work, differential pairs route as a unit with phase matching, and length tuning generates accordion or trombone patterns to hit a target within a tolerance.

The rules engine covers clearance, width, via style, plane connection, impedance, matched length and dozens of others, scoped by net class, layer, room or arbitrary query. That query language is what lets a rule express something like a specific clearance only between two particular net classes on the outer layers, which is exactly the kind of constraint a real board needs and a simple rule table cannot state.

The three dimensional view is a real model rather than an approximation, so the board can be checked against an enclosure with the mechanical model imported, connectors verified for clearance, and component heights checked against a lid. Catching a mechanical collision here rather than after fabrication is worth the whole license on its own.

Manufacturing output and documentation

Output jobs bundle the whole manufacturing package into one configured action: fabrication files, drill data, pick and place, assembly drawings, bill of materials and the layer stack documentation. The package regenerates rather than being rebuilt each time a change lands, which removes the situation where a fabricator receives a set of files from three different revisions.

The draftsman documentation environment produces proper assembly and fabrication drawings that update with the board, with dimensions, layer stack tables, drill tables and detail views placed as intelligent objects rather than drawn by hand. Supply chain data attached to components feeds the bill of materials with real part information rather than a description somebody typed.

What you get

• Unified environment for schematic, layout, library and output
• Hierarchical and multi channel schematic design with harnesses
• Components unifying symbol, footprint, three dimensional model and supply data
• Interactive routing with push and shove behaviour
• Differential pair routing with phase matching and length tuning
• Query based rules engine with fine grained scoping
• Accurate three dimensional board view with mechanical model import
• Design rule checking against both schematic and board
• Output jobs producing the complete manufacturing package in one action
• Draftsman documentation that updates with the design

Inside the archive

• Altium Designer installer, 64-bit
• Component libraries with footprints and three dimensional models
• Example projects covering multi channel and high speed designs
• Output job templates for a standard manufacturing package
• Notes on library paths and project setup

System requirements

Installing it

1. Unpack the archive to a path with no spaces or accented characters.
2. Suspend real time protection until the install and licensing step are both finished.
3. Run the installer as administrator and include the component libraries.
4. Skip the account prompt at first launch, the licensing state is already applied.
5. Set the library paths in preferences before opening a project.
6. Open an example project and run a design rule check to confirm the full rule set is available.

Mirrors

Release history

Questions about this release

Comments

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