Altium Designer: My Choice for PCB Design

So in 2014 I went to an Altium Designer 15 introductory workshop. This was delivered by Premier EDA, the UKs sales and support center for all Altium products.

Some may ask why I use this particular product? The simple answer is that I wanted a much more professional tool for the PCB requirements of the FLITES project over and above the rather poor tool I used during my PH.D (Target 3000). In particular I wanted to up my own skill set to more industry standards while also utilizing some of their in built signal integrity and spice simulation tools. I already knew the FLITES project would be using high-speed SerDes and LVDS signalling and the adverts for the tool targeted this side of the project very well. I was also interested in their libraries as the prospect of inputting the ICs and landing patterns of high grade components myself seemed to be rather dauntingly lengthy, particularly after the painstaking and time consuming period of PCB design during my Ph.D.

So, together with Altium and Premier EDA we negotiated a sponsorship deal for the FLITES project. This amounted - in the end - to two seats for two years. A fantastic gift in terms of professional design tool access, support and my own learning curve of new industry standard tools, and especially as the budget was becoming ever tighter in terms of the required physical technologies.

Below, with me looking rather unshaven, is myself, Philip Majo {right} (Premier EDA) and Elmar Dukek {left} (Altium EMEA VAR Manager). This was taken at their UpHall, Edinburgh, Workshop in 2014 and was instrumental in a obtaining face to face meeting to complement email discussions of the sponsorship they wanted to offer the FLITES project.

Myself and the FLITES team are indebted to them for this help. Our thanks.