Altium takes PCB design to the cloud

By Gina Roos, editor-in-chief

Altium, LLC has released Altium 365, touted as the industry’s first cloud platform for printed circuit board (PCB) design. Under development for a couple of years, the platform was designed to make it easier for PCB designers, part suppliers, and manufacturers to collaborate from design to production.

It also allows engineers to work from anywhere — untethered from the office desktop — as telecommuting, or remote working, becomes a growing trend in the electronics industry during the Covid-19 pandemic.

A key capability of the cloud-based platform is its seamless integration with Altium Designer, the company’s premier PCB and electronic design automation (EDA) software package for PCBs. It brings together the collaboration features of the cloud with the muscle of the desktop PCB design software. The tool helps design teams reduce miscommunication, redesign iterations, and time to market.

Altium 365 allows users to bring together stakeholders — including electronic, mechanical, and software designers — even if they don’t have Altium Designer. Users can share, visualize, and mark up designs, as well as add comments for all stakeholders, while allowing other designers to connect to the same PCB design with Altium Designer to review and make changes.

The workspace allows project teams to keep all components, designs, and libraries in one place so that everyone has access to the same source of information, enabling faster design. In addition, teams can access the projects at any time from anywhere using any internet-enabled device.

Two key capabilities include the ability to co-design with electrical and mechanical engineers and share PCB designs with internal and external stakeholders with a secure web link for real-time collaboration and review.

Michael Perkins, director for Skyships, an automotive Tier One manufacturer, said that the company’s production and design teams are working better together using Altium 365, and they’re able to design faster using different teams at different locations.

In addition, the cloud system and increased collaboration has helped the company increase its productivity and the link between design and production, he added.

The built-in co-designer capability for electronic and mechanical domain collaboration is provided through native integration with PTC Creo, Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks, and Autodesk Inventor. This allows PCB designers and mechanical CAD designers to collaborate more efficiently.

Altium 365 also helps streamline the manufacturing process by enabling designs to be packaged and shared with internal and external shareholders with a secure web link.