Updates to high-speed flagship PCB design suite announced

Altium has announced the next update to its flagship PCB design tool, Altium Designer. Altium Designer 15.1 will introduce several new features for improved design productivity, documentation outputs and high-speed design efficiency. “We’re pushing productivity and high-speed design features further than we ever have before,” said Jason Hingston, CTO, Altium. “With Altium Designer 15.1, we remain committed as ever to expanding our core expertise in making the most productive and efficient design software for the complexity demanded from today’s electronic designs and the needs of engineers.” The new features in Altium Designer 15.1 are adding to an existing foundation set in place with the initial release of Altium Designer 15, which focused on improvements to the high-speed design process. In addition, Altium Designer 15.1 also enhances the core philosophy of the software, with a continued focus on improved design productivity and efficiency. Expanding upon these two existing foundations, Altium Designer 15.1 is adding Improved Support for xSignals, Expanded Rigid-Flex Support, New Output Documentation Options, andNew Design Re-Use Features : Improved Support for xSignals The release of Altium Designer 15.0 provided a set of features to address the growing complexity of high-speed design. To enhance the productivity of the high-speed design process even further, a wizard for xSignals that helps save time on configuring length-matching rules has been added. Expanded Rigid-Flex Support The addition of bikini coverlay support for rigid-flex designs allows users to easily add support layers to flexible designs that can be viewed in 3D and configured with user-specific materials. New Output Documentation Options The introduction of 3D PDF output documentation in Altium Designer 15.1 makes it easy for anyone on the team, designer or not, to view a PCB design in 3D from any compatible PDF viewer. New Design Re-Use Features Additional design re-use tools are being added for increased productivity when managing pads and vias as reusable libraries in PCB designs. Padstacks will allow a user to define templates for different sized pads and vias in specific groups being used on a board, saving designers time by no longer having to define pad and via sizes individually, says the company.