Announcement: Texas Instruments Power & Audio Content Update

The team has released 2791 new board-level components further expanding our TI Power Management coverage with the addition of 14 new collections and updates to Standard Voltage and Step-Down Regulator.

• Texas Instruments Power Management Current Limited Switch

• Texas Instruments Power Management Digital Power Control

• Texas Instruments Power Management Hot Swap

• Texas Instruments Power Management Non Current Limited Load Switch

• Texas Instruments Power Management PCMCIA and USB

• Texas Instruments Power Management Power Multiplexer (MUX)

• Texas Instruments Power Management Power Factor Correction

• Texas Instruments Power Management Power Supply Support

• Texas Instruments Power Management Special Function

• Texas Instruments Power Management Supervisor and Reset IC

• Texas Instruments Power Management Step-Up Regulator

• Texas Instruments Power Management DC-DC Controller (Ext. Switch)

• Texas Instruments Power Management Buck Boost Regulator

• Texas Instruments Power Management Inverting Regulator

Also included in this release is the addition of 199 components in Audio CODECs.

• Texas Instruments Audio CODEC

These components can be found in the Unified Components section of the Content Store. You can also use these components directly from within Altium Designer via the Vault Explorer - where you will also find supplier links and pricing information. For integrated libraries, look for the ‘Download Library’ button on the Content Store pages.

ALTIUM ANNOUNCES CEO DEPARTURE AND APPOINTMENT OF CEO

---------- The Official Release Follows ----------

ALTIUM ANNOUNCES CEO DEPARTURE AND APPOINTMENT OF CEO

Sydney, Australia - 15 October 2012 - Electronics design software company Altium Limited (ASX:ALU) advises that Chief Executive Officer and Founder Mr Nick Martin has stepped down from his positions with the company with immediate effect and is replaced by Executive Vice Chairman, Mr Kayvan Oboudiyat, as CEO.

The Board of Altium wishes to sincerely thank Mr Martin for his tireless dedication to the company for over 25 years and wishes him well for the future as he pursues his personal endeavours.

While Altium has made considerable progress over the past twelve months, having relocated its global headquarters to China, and returning to profitability, it is the Board’s decision that it is in the best interests of Altium to adopt a different style of leadership with focus on returning value to shareholders.

Chairman of Altium, Mr Sam Weiss said, “Nick Martin has been a significant contributor to Altium over many years. Notwithstanding, it is the view of the Board that while Altium’s assets and technological innovation have always been strong, the company has under-performed against the opportunity”.

Altium has positioned itself on a path to transform itself from a traditional software company to a “software as a service company” that embraces the web. This has been achieved through the active pursuit of content driven subscription strategy and the acquisition of the required web-related technologies and their subsequent development direction.

These achievements along with Altium’s relocation to China provide an opportunity for Altium to be a key player in the emerging Electronic Design Tools market that is built around web-enabled devices. The Board has recognised that for this opportunity to be fully realised, Altium must commit to the achievement of profitability that is sustainable over the long-term.

Mr Weiss acknowledged that “this will require Altium to exercise fiscal discipline while actively pursuing technological innovation that will achieve commercial success”.

Mr Weiss further stated that “as a Board, we are pleased to be able to appoint Mr Kayvan Oboudiyat as our CEO and achieve a successful and seamless change to leadership. As Executive Vice Chairman, with over 15 years experience with Altium, Kayvan understands the company well”. Altium also intends to undertake a search to identify a suitable external candidate to join the leadership team, and will advise further at the time of any such appointment."

Announcement: Update 22 for Altium Designer

The Altium Development team is pleased to announce the 22nd update for Altium Designer.

This release focuses on additional enhancements to Altium Designer, with the key highlights being:

Delete selected objects:

We have included a new feature in PCB Editor for deleting of selected objects (through the shortcut keys Ctrl+Delete), which then selects adjacent routed objects for further unrouting. When single end-of-route object is selected, Backspace shortcut now deletes selection and auto-selects connected singular route object. Each of these shortcuts can be used in a successive manner to incrementally unwind routed paths.

Read more in the Wiki.

New module for output of IDF:

This release has the addition of a new plugin “Output - IDF” found in the Output Generators category. This new plugin provides IDF export capability in the OutJob “Export Outputs” section.
Read more in the Wiki.

Updated FPGA Device and Vendor Tools Support:

Xilinx ISE v14.2 and Lattice Diamond 2.0 are now supported. Ultra and micro fineline ball grid array (UBGA & MBGA) devices have been added to the Altera Cyclone4E Nexus driver.

There are an additional 25 new enhancements included in this release, with many a result of requests made through BugCrunch forum posts and support cases. Full details of this update can be found in the release notes.

Accessing the Update

To update your Altium Designer installation, first ensure you are using a license with valid subscription. Proceed to the Plug-in page (DXP >> Plug-ins and Updates) and select “Update All”. If you don’t see the update, use the “Refresh” link in the top right hand corner of the Plugins page.

This release includes changes to our Run Time Libraries, which requires the majority of modules to be updated. For those users who experience a lengthy update process due to anti-virus programs, using the full download option becomes a much faster process. For more info, see Wiki.

Installation of the updated modules will bring their revision up to 10.1271.26245. The Platform Build number will also update to 10.1271.26245 as the Altium Designer Base module is updated.

Note: If you are using a Private Server license or Standalone license and you have renewed your subscription since activation, you will be required to reactivate your license to obtain this and future updates.

For those who installed directly from DVD, you can access the updates by changing a setting in preferences: System >> Installation Manager, change the Remote Repository Location to http://installation.altium.com

If you are wanting to install a new build containing this update, the Installer and Uninstaller can be downloaded from the Software page in AltiumLive - download the latest Installer/Uninstaller.