Altium Develop
Altium, IncReviews from AWS customer
0 AWS reviews
-
5 star0
-
4 star0
-
3 star0
-
2 star0
-
1 star0
External reviews
965 reviews
from
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Senior Power Electronics Engineer
What do you like best about the product?
User Friednly which makes is ease of use
What do you dislike about the product?
as much as it is easier to use and to make schematic and PCB, it is somehow and sometime difficult to define the rules appropriately.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
designing the schematic and PCB of high power and low power circuits in one boar
Altium user of nearly 20yrs
What do you like best about the product?
The integration of schematics, simulation, BOM organization, and Layout...plus the recent additions of tools/plugins.
What do you dislike about the product?
The increase in cost and the upcoming change to eliminate perpetual licenses.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Schematic capture with real-time supply chain data, BOM management, and accurate/flexible PCB Layout.
Used every day and on all of our projects
What do you like best about the product?
overall very easy to use and necessary for our work
What do you dislike about the product?
cloud system can be unintuitive at times
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The design rule makes it easy to detect issues when making PCBs
Altium has been a better and far more complete design experience than using OrCAD or PADS
What do you like best about the product?
Altium Designer comes with everything you need to get a design entered and laid out in one tool. You don't have to pay for additional functions - it's all there. Schematic integration with large part databases with pricing and availability and powerful manufacturing BOM generation is very slick. SPICE is there for analog simulation. Layout with Altium is great with support for matched length routing, controlled-impedance, differential pairs, guided manual and auto routing. It's a real time-saver once you learn how to use it. The way 3D mechanical models are integrated into the design and output for use in mechanical design is very helpful. Altium Designer is by far the best electronic design tool I've ever used.
What do you dislike about the product?
The price can be high, but there are some attractive options to make it more affordable. When you consider what you would pay for other tools with similar features it's not unreasonable. The CAD world has been moving toward a subscription model for some time now and that can help to manage budgets. Customer support is not as fast as some others, but their staff is very knowledgable and helpful and there is a hugh user base to draw on for support.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I enjoy the way high-speed and differential pair routing are handled in Altium, making things easier. Adding new parts to a design is much easier with pricing and availability up front in the selection process. For a small company this can be a huge time saver. I also really appreciate the way 3D models are handled. It's really nice having 3D design integrated so well in the design process.
A tool which works, fast
What do you like best about the product?
PCB layout process is especially smooth for me. It's hard to summarise such a complex process, but I will try to list a few processes which I find especially satysfying when using Altium ( I am using version 25)
- Amazing support for .step 3D bodies. Visualising the fit of components is extremely easy on tight boards. Never having to worry about having an "exceedingly complex" step file - the speed of rendering is great. Positioning even the most awkward 3D bodies is easy using the "snap points" feature.
- "Work guides" feature makes positioning pads within a footprint easier. For some reason, footprint drawings in the datasheets seem to be drawn by people who never had to create one. Why give dimensions to the edge of the pad, not the centre? Pads are always placed by the centre. Anyhow, work guides go a long way towards solving this issue, as it's easy to visually alight the edge of a newly placed pad to the work guide. Presto.
- Draftsman tool makes generating quality assembly drawings a breeze. It takes a few clicks, and it looks great. Get massive kudos from manufacturing colleages who are used to old-skool documentation generated from Gerber layers
- Routing is generally very smooth, including differential pairs. Push-and-shove is brilliant. xSignals are really valuable too for complex, impedance- and length-controlled designs.
- The repeatable output generation using Output jobs is a massive time saver. The degree of customisation of the output leaves not much to be desired
- Custom queiries in Design Rules allow almost infinite degree of precision when specifying pretty much every aspect of the design
- Powerful library model allows each company to find a level of complexity/simplicity of library organisation which suits their size and style of working, from simple file-based to database-based
There will be lost of other positives, these are just the ones which stand out. The quality of documentation is generally brilliant, which makes it fast and easy to upskill and become productive, fast.
- Amazing support for .step 3D bodies. Visualising the fit of components is extremely easy on tight boards. Never having to worry about having an "exceedingly complex" step file - the speed of rendering is great. Positioning even the most awkward 3D bodies is easy using the "snap points" feature.
- "Work guides" feature makes positioning pads within a footprint easier. For some reason, footprint drawings in the datasheets seem to be drawn by people who never had to create one. Why give dimensions to the edge of the pad, not the centre? Pads are always placed by the centre. Anyhow, work guides go a long way towards solving this issue, as it's easy to visually alight the edge of a newly placed pad to the work guide. Presto.
- Draftsman tool makes generating quality assembly drawings a breeze. It takes a few clicks, and it looks great. Get massive kudos from manufacturing colleages who are used to old-skool documentation generated from Gerber layers
- Routing is generally very smooth, including differential pairs. Push-and-shove is brilliant. xSignals are really valuable too for complex, impedance- and length-controlled designs.
- The repeatable output generation using Output jobs is a massive time saver. The degree of customisation of the output leaves not much to be desired
- Custom queiries in Design Rules allow almost infinite degree of precision when specifying pretty much every aspect of the design
- Powerful library model allows each company to find a level of complexity/simplicity of library organisation which suits their size and style of working, from simple file-based to database-based
There will be lost of other positives, these are just the ones which stand out. The quality of documentation is generally brilliant, which makes it fast and easy to upskill and become productive, fast.
What do you dislike about the product?
It mostly "just works", however there are some small niggles (as with any products). The ones I specifially came across are:
- Sometimes the design rules don't seem to work quite right with custom queries. For example, trying to create a rule to ignore supposedly interfering components don't always work. Specifically, if one creates a "Component clearance" rule, "where the first object matches" X and "where the second matches" Y, and set the minimum vertical and horisontal clearances to 0, it's meant to be a canonical way of ignoring a collision. However, it's a guess whether the "collision" will actually be igonored - more often than not I find the rule just does not work unfortunately, even with the priority set right.
- Another example of seemingly awkward/unworkable rule seems trying to ignore an unconnected class of polygons. I have a design where I have a few unconnected (no net) polygons underneath the switching inductors to prevent magnetic field from coupling onto the rest of the place. Altium correctly marks them as an "un-routed net", however I've not found a way to create a rule under "un-routed net" category to ignore them. Further on that point, the same query, "InPolygonClass('L3_unconnected')" works in PCB filter but does not work in the rule dialog. More consistency would be great.
One can always waive the resulting violations, but that does not convey the design intent as well.
- My colleagues and I found that sometimes the track length calculation ignores small segments of the track on a certain layer. This is potentially a big problem when trying to precisely tune/match track length.
-Very occasionally, Altium hangs with a memory violation error or some such error. I guess it's mostly inevitable for a product of such complexity, but it's still a bug!
- Sometimes the design rules don't seem to work quite right with custom queries. For example, trying to create a rule to ignore supposedly interfering components don't always work. Specifically, if one creates a "Component clearance" rule, "where the first object matches" X and "where the second matches" Y, and set the minimum vertical and horisontal clearances to 0, it's meant to be a canonical way of ignoring a collision. However, it's a guess whether the "collision" will actually be igonored - more often than not I find the rule just does not work unfortunately, even with the priority set right.
- Another example of seemingly awkward/unworkable rule seems trying to ignore an unconnected class of polygons. I have a design where I have a few unconnected (no net) polygons underneath the switching inductors to prevent magnetic field from coupling onto the rest of the place. Altium correctly marks them as an "un-routed net", however I've not found a way to create a rule under "un-routed net" category to ignore them. Further on that point, the same query, "InPolygonClass('L3_unconnected')" works in PCB filter but does not work in the rule dialog. More consistency would be great.
One can always waive the resulting violations, but that does not convey the design intent as well.
- My colleagues and I found that sometimes the track length calculation ignores small segments of the track on a certain layer. This is potentially a big problem when trying to precisely tune/match track length.
-Very occasionally, Altium hangs with a memory violation error or some such error. I guess it's mostly inevitable for a product of such complexity, but it's still a bug!
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Producing quality PCB's fast. Drafsman tool in conjuction with Variants is very useful for any real-life product which need correct production variant management and quality assembly instructions.
Altium saves time in my work
What do you like best about the product?
The company has upgraded from PADS to Altium and this feels like buying a Ferrari.
Differential pair routing and multi-layer board design using layer stack managet has helped us get through EMC testing.
ActiveBOM is a fantastic feature in assisting with REACH/RoHS requirements.
Tool is very esay to use and is intuitive, great integration with manufacturer part seach and schematic design.
There are lots of guide videos with good commentary.
I now use Altium pretty much every day and happy to continue doing so.
I like that there are frequent software updates.
Differential pair routing and multi-layer board design using layer stack managet has helped us get through EMC testing.
ActiveBOM is a fantastic feature in assisting with REACH/RoHS requirements.
Tool is very esay to use and is intuitive, great integration with manufacturer part seach and schematic design.
There are lots of guide videos with good commentary.
I now use Altium pretty much every day and happy to continue doing so.
I like that there are frequent software updates.
What do you dislike about the product?
So far we have not seen any issues with Altium.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
With the help of Altium Designer, we have redesigned the PCB as 6-layer board with differential pairs of matched impedance. These changes helped in passing the EMC testing, resulting in product launch on the market.
Altium Designer's API with major component suppliers and IHS market help a lot during component selection process. We save a ton of time now, as pretty much every component that is needed has REACH and RoHS information, which helps us in making the decesion on whether the component can be used or not in the early stage of the deisng.
Altium Designer's API with major component suppliers and IHS market help a lot during component selection process. We save a ton of time now, as pretty much every component that is needed has REACH and RoHS information, which helps us in making the decesion on whether the component can be used or not in the early stage of the deisng.
The choice of a new generation of engineers
What do you like best about the product?
Since the time when Altium was a local program, engineers knew that this design software had the potential to surpass all existing programs. In my case, I started using the local version of Altium, not Altium 365, but I was already satisfied with its powerful manufacturer component search feature and the integration of the PCB editor. However, after using Altium 365, I was amazed by how much faster I could access and use the same features from anywhere on the cloud, further accelerating the design process. On top of that, I could also enjoy the excellent remote customer service that Altium is known for, as well as the seamless implementation with design file standards from other companies. Since switching to Altium 365, my usage frequency has significantly increased compared to when I was using the local version, probably because I no longer have to wait through long loading times.
What do you dislike about the product?
Aside from the fact that it is more expensive compared to other cloud-based EDA tools, there is nothing else. However, I can confidently say that the features and convenience of Altium 365 more than justify its high price. If your organization adopts this, you will likely achieve at least a 20% reduction in design time compared to the current process.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The biggest advantage is that it’s not on my computer. Altium is a quite heavy program. Although it supports multi-core processing, it still has long loading times and occasional instability on regular computers. However, since I started using Altium 365, these basic issues have disappeared. Additionally, taking advantage of the ability to access it from anywhere, I was able to complete the assignments given by my professor regardless of location.
Altium has expedited my design time and helped me improved overall signal integrity.
What do you like best about the product?
The high speed signal features (length tuning and xSignals) is incredibly helpful. The mCAD integration has also been a major key in designing successful test fixtures and product enclosures.
What do you dislike about the product?
Major revisions to a PCB can be hectic when intially updating the PCB. Parts will be get scattered around the board and placed in incorrect places.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It has allowed us to design custom bed of nail test systems by utilizing the mCAD tools.
Productivity and collaboration greatly improved
What do you like best about the product?
Highly customizable design rules and checks, 3D views, and Draftsman documents are all great.
What do you dislike about the product?
Learning curve is steep but it is very powerful once you become proficient.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I was unable to reliably design flex and rigid-flex boards with my previous software. Altium has these types of designs in mind and makes them quite easy.
The best electronic cad ever!!!
What do you like best about the product?
Ease of use, very intuitive menus and controls
What do you dislike about the product?
the cost of the annual subscription, I prefer the perpetual license solution
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
creates 3D PCBs that are very useful for interfacing with mechanical CAD
showing 91 - 100