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Altium Releases Service Pack 4 for Altium Designer

Altium Designer System Significantly Extended With Over 100 New Features and Enhancements to Improve Design Team Experience

Altium Limited (ASX: ALU), a leading developer of Windows-based electronics design software, today announced the release of Service Pack 4 (SP4) for Altium Designer, the single, unified application that incorporates all the technologies and capabilities necessary for complete electronic product development. Available as a free download to existing licensed Altium Designer Nexar, Protel, CircuitStudio and CAMtastic customers, SP4 includes over 100 new features and enhancements to improve collaboration between design teams and make electronic product development faster and more efficient.

The development of the new features and enhancements available within SP4 reflects the close cooperation Altium shares with its Altium Designer community. As a result of this cooperation, SP4 includes a range of new team-targeted features such as document file locking to improve collaborative design. With this feature enabled, documents opened for editing by one designer can be locked to prevent accidental overwriting by other designers, thus improving overall work flow in which a number of designers are working on a single project.

A new 'Archive Project' command automatically consolidates all project documents within a compressed zip file. This allows easy movement of the design between PCs, or archiving of a completed project.

At the PCB level, SP4 introduces real-time, 3D component clearance checking when placing parts. Designers can define the extent of components in terms of multiple areas, heights and standoffs, creating a complex 3D 'envelope' of the component body. Enhancements to component clearance checking rules allow clearances in all directions to be monitored in real-time during placement, enabling the effective stacking of components compliant with height restrictions.

Schematic editing has been enhanced to include the automation of common rework operations on schematic designs, reducing errors and design time. New commands include 'Push Part to Sheet', that makes it easy to replace a component with a sheet symbol, automatically creating an additional subsheet containing the displaced component and maintain overall connectivity. A new 'Rename Child Sheet' command allows the user to change the filename of a subsheet and optionally update all sheet symbols in the project or workspace. These commands guarantee the integrity of updates and lessen the risk of errors and the time taken to reorganize a schematic.

"Altium Designer Service Pack 4 is yet another example of Altium's commitment to responding to our customers needs and bringing the best and latest technology to their design desktops," said Nick Martin, founder and CEO, Altium. "The powerful features and enhancements included in this service pack improve collaboration within design teams and make the overall electronic product development process easier and more efficient."

SP4 key features at a glance

--  Improved design team support with the new file locking option
--  Improved project management and portability with the new 'Archive
    Project' wizard
--  New Default Document feature, which allows users to define defaults
    for all document-kinds, including projects
--  Improved control of the 99SE import process
--  Full 3-dimensional component clearance checking can be performed with
    introduction of the new Component Body object
--  Enhanced PCB editing, click to select a component or net object on the
    PCB and that component or net will select in the PCB panel as well
--  Enhanced schematic hierarchy management with the new 'Push Part to
    Sheet' and 'Rename Child Sheet' commands
--  Stronger global editing capabilities
--  Click-and-drag component toolbar building
--  Extended HDL design capabilities; the new Altium Synthesizer has been
    introduced, which supports both VHDL and Verilog (Verilog2001)
--  Improved vendor independence with the addition of support for Lattice
    EC® and ECP® devices
--  Improved Altera® device support with the addition of support for the
    Altera® MAX® II devices
    

Pricing and Availability

Service Pack 4 is available free of charge for immediate download to all existing licensed Altium Designer customers from http://www.altium.com/Products/AltiumDesigner/ServicePacks/. For more information on Altium Designer, visit http://www.altium.com/Products/AltiumDesigner/.

For pricing, please contact your local Altium Sales and Support Center or Reseller, or visit http://www.altium.com/Contacts/SalesOfficesResellers/.

About Altium Limited

Altium Limited (ASX: ALU) is a global developer and supplier of electronics design software for the Microsoft Windows environment. Founded in 1985, Altium released the world's first Microsoft Windows-based printed circuit board design tool in 1991, and continues to provide advanced, easy-to-use and affordable software design tools for complete electronic product development to electronics engineers, designers, and developers worldwide. Altium is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and has sales and support offices in Australia, the United States, Japan, Europe and China. For more information, please visit www.altium.com.

Altium, Altium Designer, CAMtastic, CircuitStudio, Design Explorer, DXP, LiveDesign, NanoBoard, NanoTalk, Nexar, nVisage, P-CAD, Protel, Situs, TASKING, and Topological Autorouting and their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Altium Limited or its subsidiaries. All other registered or unregistered trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners, and no trademark rights to the same are claimed.

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