Altium has added web-based software licence management to its Designer design software, which the company says will aid the management of design teams, workloads and projects.

The new software licence options mean that it is no longer necessary to match specific licences to individual users. Instead, designers can “book out” a licence for use on any computer. Once the work, project, task or shift is completed, the licence is “released” back to Altium’s server for use by other designers.

One aspect of this is that it will support the scheduling of work across different regions and time zones, or have designers work at home or in discrete design groups, without being compelled to purchase one license per user or per computer.

Other features include custom FPGA logic development for board-level designers, with no HDL skills required; a doubling of mechanical layers; high-level software development using C++; and USB device support.

Altium has also extended live links within Altium Designer to component supplier databases (first introduced in December 2008 with Digi-Key), adding Premier Farnell.