Altium, Desktop EDA Partner for ECAD, MCAD Integration

Altium Limited has partnered with Desktop EDA to provide designers with advanced ECAD and MCAD integration. The new add-on applications, Desktop EDA Solidworks Modeler and the IDF Modelers, are currently available for Altium Designer.

“By partnering with Desktop EDA, we’re extending Altium’s market-leading position as a native 3D PCB design system provider,” said Daniel Fernsebner, director of technical partnerships for Altium. “Desktop EDA apps for Altium Designer focus on bringing greater productivity to mechanical designers working with PCB designs.”

By transferring data directly between Altium Designer and SolidWorks programs running on the same PC, designers need not use intermediate files to synchronize design changes and facilitate engineering change orders (ECO). This approach eliminates translation issues, saves time and provides a more detailed model of the PCB design in SolidWorks, the company says. By including PCB copper layers in the transfer, the design in SolidWorks can then be used as a starting point for more advanced mechanical CAD operations, such as thermal simulation.

Desktop EDA’s IDF modeler app for Altium Designer allows users of the native 3D PCB design system to export and import a complete model of the 3D PCB in the industry standard IDF file format. Coupled with a companion Desktop EDA plug-in for the target MCAD design tool, teams save time by having a both full synchronization features as well as PCB copper design elements.

Companion Plug-ins are also available for Dassault SolidWorks, Autodesk Inventor, and Siemens Solid Edge.

For more information, visit Altium and Desktop EDA.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.