Announcement: Update 23 for Altium Designer (23 Nov 2012, platform 26514)

Announcement: Update 23 for Altium Designer (23 Nov 2012, platform 26514)

 

Hi everyone,

I'm pleased to announce the 23rd update for Altium Designer.

This release brings additional enhancements to Altium Designer, and includes a new command in the PCB editor and PCB library editor to deselect objects by touching rectangle or touching line, as well as Polygon pour order management and PCB Rules dialog improvements. More updates to the FPGA device and vendor tools support and the Importers. For further details, refer to my blog and to the release notes in Wiki.

To update your Altium Designer installation, ensure you are using a license with valid Subscription, then go to the Plug-in page (DXP >> Plug-ins and Updates) and select “Update All”.

 

Updated PADS netlister script

Although the true power of Altium Designer comes from utilizing the entire unified flow, there are a handful of customers who, for various reasons, use just the schematic editor as a point tool. There are a number of netlisters available from the Design menu in schematic, including one for PADS. While the format of the resulting outputs is technically correct, it’s a bit out of date and there is usually some manual editing that needs to be done for PADS to recognize the files. A customer of mine wanted a more elegant solution to make it easier for his engineers to work in Altium while the layout team makes a slower transition from PADS over to Altium.

I found a netlisting script as part of the legacy “Scripts” folders that used to get installed in the “Examples” folder. Those scripts, incidentally, are now available on AltiumLive here. The original netlisting script is for Protel (in Scripts\Delphiscript Scripts\WSM\Protel Netlister). I made some formatting changes to it and now have a script that outputs a correctly-formatted, single PADS netlist in the current format (V9).

There are two ways to run the script that need some explaining. The current PADS netlister in Altium uses only the footprint to populate *Part* section:

*PART*
U1 FG456
U2 SOT95P280-5
U3 TSOP80P1176-44

However, PADS does not need the name of the footprint (decal) first, it needs the name of the Part with the footprint name following an @ sign:

*PART*
U1 XC3S1000-4FG456C@FG456
U2 SN74LVC1G04DBV@SOT95P280-5
U3 SRAM-256Kx16@TSOP80P1176-44

This script populates the Part field by pulling either Altium’s “Comment” field or the “Design Item ID” field. This gives the user a choice of what to use as the equivalent Part in PADS. In addition, the Comment field can be populated using "indirection," which will use one of the user-defined parameters instead. This allows the user to have a separate parameter (e.g, "PadsPartType") dedicated to the PADS Part name. (**Keep in mind that spaces are not allowed in the parameter name when indirection is used.) When the script is run, the user can choose which method to use to populate the Part field.

Another change with this script is that unlike the current netlister which creates two files (one for the parts section of the netlist and another for the nets), this will create one file with the proper .asc extension for immediate import to PADS. Because Altium does not recognize .asc as a netlist file, however, it will be placed in the “Text Documents” section of the Project panel, rather than “Netlist Files.” The file itself gets placed in the default Output Path folder.

The file header is set for PADS V9 (“!PADS-POWERPCB-V9.0-MILS! NETLIST FILE FROM ALTIUM DESIGNER). If the user requires an older format, a simple text replace in the script file (“ScripterPadsNetlist.pas”) will do the trick. Feel free to make any other edits you require.

Hope this helps some of you!

Design Secret - number 52 - How to make custom copper Thieving Patterns

Design Secret - number 52 - in which Senior Applications Engineer Colby Siemer shows us how to make custom copper Thieving Patterns.

Of course, you can make thieving patterns in the CAM editor - this has been possible for a while. But using Stitching Vias to do it instead creates a whole lot of new possibilities:

• Addition of just about any shape thieves
• Rotation of the thieves
• One-Time generation of outputs (rather than re-export from the CAM editor after they were added).

Click the link below to watch the video and let Colby show you how to do it. You may even learn other Global Editing Techniques along the way ;-)

Click here to watch.

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.

Announcement: Texas Instruments Power & Interface Content Update

The Altium Content Team is pleased to announce new updates to the Altium Vault and Content Store. This release includes new families in Texas Instruments Power Management and Interface.

The team has released 1790 new board-level components expanding on the TI Power Management collection with the addition of Battery Management, Standard Voltage Regulators, Step-Down Regulators & LDO Controllers.

• Texas Instruments Power Management Battery Management

• Texas Instruments Power Management Standard Voltage Regulator

• Texas Instruments Power Management Step-Down Regulator

• Texas Instruments Power Management LDO Controller

TI Interface also gets new additions as part of this release with 735 new devices across the following families:

• Texas Instruments Interface Display

• Texas Instruments Interface Optical Module IC

• Texas Instruments Interface Isolator

• Texas Instruments Interface Serializer Deserializer

• Texas Instruments Interface LVDS M-LVDS ECL CML

• Texas Instruments Interface ESD EMI Protection

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.