Altium Designer includes management/access options

The new options are intended to make it easier for electronics designers to manage design teams, workloads and projects.

Other features include: custom field-programmable gate array (FPGA) logic development for board-level designers, with no HDL skills required; a doubling of mechanical layers; high-level software development using C++; and USB device support.

Altium's software licence options mean that designers and managers are no longer compelled to match specific licences to individual users.

Instead, designers can 'book out' a licence for use on any computer.

Once the work, project, task or shift is completed, the licence is 'released' back to Altium's server for use by other designers.

Designers and their managers can schedule work flexibly across different regions and time zones or have designers work at home or in discrete design groups, without being compelled to purchase one licence per user or per computer.

They are simply plugged into all the new features and enhancements.

Altium has also retained the option for designers to have standalone licences if design or security protocols demand this.

In addition, the company has extended live links within Altium Designer to component supplier databases (first introduced in December 2008 with Digi-Key), adding Premier Farnell.

Live links put all the crucial information about a component at the start of the design process.

Altium Designer is available either by subscription for USD195 (GBP199) per month in 12-month blocks or as a perpetual licence for USD3,995, both including 12 months' software assurance.