Most significant PCB design upgrade since Windows

Altium is set to release the next generation of its Protel board-level design system in Q1 2002.

Altium is set to release the next generation of its Protel board-level design system in Q1 2002.

With a working codename of Phoenix, the release will be the culmination of two years of extensive research and development work by Altium, and constitutes a major upgrade to the current Protel product.

It will feature a host of generational improvements including a new Topological Autorouting system that promises superior performance to current shape-based routing technologies.

Other enhancements include new and improved design file storage methods that maintain the integrity of the design structure regardless of how or where documents are stored, fully integrated components and libraries, and numerous productivity enhancements based on extensive customer feedback.

This new generation of Protel will offer engineers and designers significantly greater productivity with higher levels of design integration, automation, and accessibility to new technologies.

Phoenix will extend the design integration framework pioneered by Altium's successful Protel 98 and Protel 99 SE products.

As time-to-market pressures increase, a continual frustration of engineers and designers worldwide is the inability to easily move back and forward through the design process.

Altium's unique Design Explorer integration platform has been extensively redeveloped to separate design-file storage issues from the design itself, allowing effortless propagation and maintenance of design-level changes across all design files.

This new release will also introduce integrated component libraries to Protel, streamlining the management of symbols, models, and footprints.

"`Phoenix' flows with the natural design process, rather than forcing designers to work around the constraints of their design tools", says Phil Loughhead, Protel Product Manager.

"`Phoenix' focuses on maintaining the design as a whole and gives engineers complete freedom to adapt the product to their work flows".

According to Loughhead, Phoenix extensively builds on the strengths of the current Protel 99 SE product.

"Phoenix promises to be the most significant upgrade to the Protel product line since the move to the Windows platform.

We've spent a lot of time listening to feedback from our customers and have been working hard to understand and service their needs.

Phoenix brings some significant new technologies to the design desktop, as well as a host of long-awaited productivity enhancements".

Other highlights of the upcoming release will include: integrated components, component libraries, and a component management system that allow designers to completely define a component in terms of its schematic symbols, PCB footprints, Spice and signal integrity models etc; support for full version control with interfaces to popular third-party version control tools such as Visual Source Safe; increased versatility in design-file storage with three storage options, including the ability to effortlessly work with free documents; enhanced signal integrity analysis; and an extensive list of usability and productivity enhancements based on customer feedback.

In the period leading up to the full commercial release of the new version, Altium will provide more information on the features and technologies to be included in Phoenix via the Protel website at www.protel.com.

Phoenix is expected to be ready for manufacture in Q1 2002.

Pricing is expected to be in line with the current Protel 99 SE pricing model.

Existing Protel customers who are members of Altium's recently announced Altium Total Support (ATS) programme will be shipped the new version free of charge as part of their ATS membership.

Altium is currently offering a 20% discount on Protel full suite new licenses and upgrades purchased during the month of December 2001.

This represents a saving of up to US $1600 on a new license and up to US $800 on an upgrade.

In addition, all new Protel 99 SE full suite licenses come with 12 months free membership to Altium Total Support (valued at US $1995) which guarantees free access to the new version when it is released.

Back to top