Altium Designer
also: Altium · Altium 365
Professional PCB design software for schematics, layout, libraries, and manufacturing outputs, widely used by electronics teams and contract designers.
Altium Designer covers schematic capture, multilayer PCB layout, high-speed and impedance-controlled routing, 3D mechanical checks, library management, and manufacturing outputs (Gerber, ODB++, IPC-2581, BOM, and pick-and-place files). Cloud collaboration features connect it to mechanical CAD and supply-chain data.
Where it bites: licensing cost, proprietary project and library formats, and the expense of switching tools mid-project. Library quality drives many manufacturing errors, so parts need checking against datasheets.
Outside help is worth it for schematic and layout reviews before fabrication, library cleanup, stack-up, and impedance planning with the fabricator, and fixing DFM findings.
Common requests
- Schematic and layout reviews before fabrication
- Library cleanup and part data
- Stack-up and impedance-controlled routing
- Manufacturing outputs and DFM fixes
- Migrating designs between EDA tools
Founder takeaway
Whatever EDA tool you use, own the source files and libraries; never let a contractor keep the only copy.
official site: altium.com/altium-designer · Altium (a Renesas company)
sources
engineer review pending