Altium Designer is a unified electronic design environment that combines all design tools into a single application. The software includes a schematic editor, PCB editor with advanced routing capabilities, Spice and signal integrity analysis tools, ECAD/MCAD integration tools, and library management, project data management, and CAM output tools. Detailed descriptions of individual features are provided in the program's specifications.
Features
Design Faster by Reusing Your Best Solutions
Reduce costs in your development process and guarantee the launch of a device from your first iteration with design reuse solutions in Altium Designer.
Accelerate Your Design Work Simplify designs and save valuable engineering time by eliminating repetitive design tasks that occur in almost every project. Altium Designer offers a variety of solutions to support design reuse including reuse blocks and snippets.
Apply Proven Design Reuse Solutions In One Click Turn the functional blocks of your existing designs into reusable elements quickly and easily. A built-in version control system and lifecycles let you track changes and use only verified designs.
Make Reusable Content Available to Everyone On Your Team Increase the efficiency of your entire team by allowing engineers to save and reuse their work. All design reuse content can be stored in a single Workspace that’s accessible to all design participants.
Variant Manager
Meet the demands of a globalized market that requires unique versions of your PCBs
Define Different Functionality for One Design Create designs with different functionality on the same board using project variants. The new Variant Manager focuses on the functionalities of your PCB as a whole instead of individual parts. By defining a group of components in the Variant Manager, you can launch a whole line of devices with different characteristics and satisfy the needs of a wide range of users.
Easily Create and Manage Variants The Variant Manager provides modern and centralized management of project variants in one place. Creating new variants and managing the composition of your devices is easier than ever.
Keep Your Variant Data Synchronized Design variants are up-to-date and in sync throughout the entire design process including schematics, PCBs, BOMs, Draftsman documents and output documentation. A clear representation of variants at every stage of your design makes it easier to understand the composition of each product.
Manufacturer Part Search
Reduce design time by eliminating your component creation proces
Choose Ready-to-Use Components in Your Design Tool Select components for your device directly in Altium Designer. There’s no need to search for parts with third-party services – everything you need is available right in your design software.
Access a Variety of Components From One Panel Get a huge library of components that are verified by IHS Markit® data. From the simplest resistors, capacitors, and inductors to highly complex ICs, components in the Manufacturer Part Search all come from a single source of truth.
Place the Parts You Need and Immediately Start Designing Select a component in the Manufacturer Part Search panel and start using it in your project right away. There are no intermediate steps required to get a part into your design.
Layer Stackup Design
Manage More Than Your PCB Layer Stack
Fully Control Your Stackup Control and manage all the parameters of a PCB layer stack at any stage of your design from one location. Materials, number of layers, the distance between adjacent layers, and overall thickness of your PCB can all be defined from the Layer Stack Manager.
Define Custom Layer Stacks for Your Designs Implement any kind of layer stack for both rigid and rigid-flex PCBs without having to limit your ideas. You can also take advantage of ready-to-use stacks that are available from most PCB manufacturers.
Connect Stack Data With Electrophysical Parameters for Routing Elements Create and edit the layer stack of your PCB in the Layer Stack Manager, and the electrical characteristics of the routing are automatically updated in the PCB editor. New parameter values are also available in your stack manager as soon as you make any changes.
Intuitive Multi-Board System Design
The easiest way to create complex designs and error-free system interconnections
Design Multi-Board Systems With an Intuitive Approach Spend more time creating complex designs and less time learning how to reflect multiple boards in your design tools. With the same design approach and editors used for single-board designs, Altium Designer empowers designers of all levels to intuitively create interconnections between multiple boards.
Easily Ensure Accurate Assembly Enclosure Fit Eliminate the challenge of ensuring the form and fit of multiple boards in an enclosure. The multi-board assembly editor allows separate boards to be rotated, aligned and plugged into each other.
Effortlessly Synchronize Design Changes Update data in your multi-board project with the latest design changes in a few clicks. Altium Designer’s unified environment enables straightforward identification and synchronization of every change in individual PCBs and the overall multi-board system design.
Unparalleled Schematic Capture
Easily capture schematics of any complexity
Everything You Need to Design Schematics Spend more time creating amazing designs, and less time figuring out how to reflect your ideas in the schematics. The Altium Designer schematic editor is intuitive and user friendly for every designer. Everything you need – hierarchical designs, design reuse, simulation, and more – is within easy reach.
Full Control of Design Changes Between Schematic and Layout With Altium Designer, your schematic and PCB design are dynamically linked. This helps prevent manufacturing headaches by ensuring changes are reflected across all of your design files. Changes can be pushed bi-directionally in a few simple clicks. And we use an ECO process for updating content, so you have complete visibility into what changes are made.
Supply Chain Intelligence
Access critical supply chain intelligence as you design
Supply Chain Intelligence That’s Always Available to You, Across All Phases of Design Finally, you have component data presented in a way that is truly useful. Easily select components that meet your needs and never get caught off guard with an unavailable or obsolete part.
Select the Right Part Every Time with Accurate, Real-time Availability as You Work Robust, real-time supply information fueled by powerful BOM tools and integrations with Octopart and IHS Markit databases run within the design experience. High-accuracy data aggregated from over 300 distributors and over a billion parts, offers a new level of confidence in part selection. Part Insights Experience can also suggest alternatives to help you make informed decisions as you design.
Design as You Always Have, Part Insights Experience Is on and Ready to Guide Your Part Selection Part Insights Experience features blend seamlessly into your design environment so that you always have real-time supply chain insights within the design experience. There’s nothing new to learn, and there are no new tools to install. Part Insights Experience is always there and ready to assist.
Real-Time BOM Management with ActiveBOM
Manage components, suppliers, and sourcing data right in Altium Designer
Always Know Your Part Availability, Cost, and Sources View your BOM cost and part availability all in one place. Altium Designer connects you to hundreds of global suppliers with data from Octopart® and IHS Markit so you’ll always have the latest price, availability, and lifecycle information.
Plan for Uncertainty with Alternative Part Choices Keep your project on schedule and always have a backup plan for manufacturing by adding alternative part choices in your ActiveBOM. You can easily replace parts in your schematic with alternative selections in a single click.
Produce Error Free Boms with Automated Verification ActiveBOM runs a comprehensive set of checks to automatically verify your specifications, find duplicate parameters and designators, identify parts without suppliers, and much more. Issues are displayed directly on your BOM for easy identification and resolution, with the ability to set the priority level for any problems.
Best in Class Interactive Routing
Perform fast, high-quality routing for any electronics projects
Powerful Rules-Based Routing As your product's demands increase, so does the need for a powerful routing engine that can handle complex routing topologies. With our rules-based routing engine, you can easily meet these demands and achieve the results you need. Every aspect of your design is controlled with an intuitive constraints editor that allows you to easily make edits as you work.
Routing Tools That Work the Way You Do Easy-to-use hotkeys, shortcuts, and an intuitive menu structure make routing a breeze. Whether you need to switch layers, push, hug, length tune, or cycle via styles, you have complete control to do your best routing work.
Professional PCB Drawings in Minutes
The only software you need for PCB design and documentation
Produce Comprehensive Documentation in Your Design Environment With a Draftsman Document, you can create documentation right next to your design. An intuitive interface provides everything you need to create precise, in-depth fabrication, assembly, and drill drawings right in your design environment.
Skip Time-Consuming Documentation Updates Eliminate the stress of redoing documentation when your design changes. Now you can update your designs with a single click! Production drawings are directly linked to your design data, allowing you to update your documentation quickly and easily.
Get Documentation Done Faster Than Ever Create documentation quickly with dedicated drawing tools and properties that live within your design parameters. You can even define document templates to generate drawings that meet your requirements and company standards.
Certainty for Every Decision with SPICE Simulation
Design, validate, and verify even the most advanced schematics without leaving your design environment
Measure Board Performance without Interrupting Design Flow Easily measure board functionality and performance without leaving your design environment. Altium Designer provides a comprehensive suite of analysis tools that cover circuit performance, signal integrity, and DC power systems. Easily perform circuit simulations and test your ideas as you create your design. Altium Designer supports analog PSpice, LTspice, and xSpice in digital formats.
Quickly Set Up and Run Simulations Spend less time preparing simulations and more time analyzing results. Run simulations directly from your schematics, and eliminate the need to test your design by moving from one EDA application to another. Altium Designer uses an advanced algorithm for mathematical calculations and a guided setup that reduces simulation times. You can even reuse simulation parameters after design changes for quicker analysis.
High-Speed PCB Design
Simple solutions to high-speed design challenges
Improve Signal Timing Altium Designer will let you easily evaluate the impact of design decisions on overall signal performance. Our powerful routing length tuning tools allow you to effortlessly align groups of high-speed transmission lines at any time. Additionally, management and control tools ensure optimal results.
Reduce Signal Noise When routing high-speed signals, problems can arise from layer stackup design, signal noise, EMI, and reflections. The highly intuitive Altium Designer layer stack manager and routing engine is built to handle these issues, so you can easily optimize routing for single transmission lines and differential pairs to avoid crosstalk and electromagnetic interference.
Maintain Signal Integrity When routing high-speed PCBs, designers must identify and address signal integrity issues throughout their design. Critical tasks such as PCB structure design, material selection, and impedance calculations can be performed right within Altium Designer, without the need for complex formulas and external software.
Licensing
Perpetual License
For companies that want license ownership:
Pay once and use a license indefinitely
First year of Subscription (new versions, updates, A365 access etc.) included in price
Cheaper yearly maintenance
Available as Standard and Professional version
Technical support
Term-Based License
The most popular choice for Altium Designer users:
Use it for a specified period, min 12 months
Perfect for individual (occasional) projects
Access to new versions, updates, A365 etc without any additional costs
Cheaper start in PCB design world
Available as Standard and Professional version
Technical support
Altium Subscription
Altium Designer software is provided with a subscription that includes access to all updates and new versions of the program, technical support, as well as discounts on training and other special offers for subscribers.
Perpetual licenses for Altium Designer typically come with a one-year subscription. Upon request and for an additional fee, the subscription can be extended for a longer period, such as two or three years. Afterwards, it can be renewed (continued or reinstated) for another year or longer.
Active Subscription
Having an active subscription provides access to the following benefits:
Updates and enhancements to the current version of the software
New versions of the software released annually
Priority technical support provided by Computer Controls and Altium
Discounts on additional licenses, training, and other products from the company's portfolio
Access to the Altium 365 platform, available in Standard, Pro, and Enterprise variants.
Continuing an existing Altium Subscription is the most cost-effective way to access the latest Altium design solutions. Renewing an expired subscription or upgrading from older versions of the software is significantly more expensive than the cumulative subscription fees for subsequent years.
Altium 365
The world's only cloud-based platform that supports PCB design and project data collaboration. Seamlessly accessible from Altium Designer or any internet-connected device. Free for Altium Subscription holders. Click the button for a detailed description.
PDN Analyzer
PDN (Power Distribution Network) Analyzer is an extension available for Altium Designer that enables DC/DC power integrity analysis of the power distribution network in a PCB project. The extension is based on the CST Analyzer. Leveraging the CST engine, the PDN Analyzer allows for easy identification of voltage drops and current overloads in DC power distribution networks directly within Altium Designer.
