The new version of Altium’s unified electronics design solution introduces over 100 new features that unify still further the different design processes.

True collaboration with the mechanical world, for the first time

Electronics generally goes into some sort of casing or enclosure, but traditionally there has been minimal linking between electronics designers and mechanical designers. Getting the electronics to fit into the case has traditionally been a matter of good luck, rather than good management.

Altium changes this by offering a real solution to the problem of matching electronics design (ECAD) to the mechanical design (MCAD) processes of enclosure design. Electronics designers, for the first time, can now link directly to the mechanical CAD world in a non-proprietary way and unify ECAD and MCAD.

Altium Designer’s existing 3D board design capabilities have been enhanced to allow for direct linking to external STEP models, an intelligent 3D file format supported by all major MCAD software. This means that electronics designers can bring mechanical assemblies or designs done in MCAD software into Altium Designer. Features have been added to allow full interference/ clearance checking between any objects in the design, such as components and the case that surrounds them. Updates to the source STEP models are detected by Altium Designer, providing a dynamic link between the electronic and mechanical domains.

Altium Designer now reads and writes STEP files, so electronics designers can set up dynamic linking between the PCB and mechanical design packages (depending on the MCAD system being used).

Electronics designers can interactively adjust board layout, component placement and even component package choice to suit the proposed enclosure design. They can ensure that the PCB complies with mechanical clearance constraints – tested directly against the real enclosure design – before the board is sent for prototyping or manufacture. This can significantly reduce the number of design iterations necessary to close the ECAD-MCAD loop and make electronic product design easier.