Altium announces new Design Capture product to be included with upcoming Protel release
Altium’s wholistic Design Capture product more than just schematic capture or VHDL entry
SYDNEY, Australia - February 11, 2002 Altium Limited (ASX: ALU), a leading developer of Windows-based electronic design and development software, is pleased to announce that a new Design Capture product with the working name “nVisage” is to be included in the upcoming version of its Protel board-level design system. nVisage is a versatile and fully integrated Design Capture system for professional engineers which integrates schematic design entry with schematic and text-based VHDL design, and allows a single design to be captured using any mix of these design entry methods. As well as offering engineers a choice of design entry, nVisage also includes powerful simulation tools and extensive design and document management that enables engineers to manage the entire design process. Other notable features of nVisage include its extensive integrated libraries and library management capabilities, and a unique “Design Compilation” engine that ensures the integrity of the entire design project. With the introduction of this new Design Capture product, Altium has integrated two different entry methodologies, and given engineers the benefits of both in one fully integrated product.
Altium’s nVisage will fill a substantial gap in the market for engineering tools. Relatively inexpensive schematic capture tools have been around for a long time, but there have been no significant schematic technology breakthroughs for engineers since the move to the Windows platform. At the same time, Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) have been making inroads as a way of designing digital circuits, particularly circuits destined to reside in programmable devices such as FPGAs. “While HDLs bring powerful programming-like features to the design process they lack the intuitive ease-of-visualisation that schematic capture brings,” says Rob Irwin, Altium’s Brand Strategy Manager.
“What nVisage does is integrate schematic and HDL-based design, and add powerful HDL features to the schematic capture process, such as the ability to easily define multiple instances or channels in a design, and provide full integration and synchronisation between schematic and HDL-based source files. For example, changes made to pin assignments of an FPGA in the VHDL code can be propagated throughout a project, with the component pins on the circuit schematic automatically changed to reflect the changes in the VHDL.”
nVisage is a complete design capture system for electronic design engineers. It provides all the tools necessary to carry out the conceptual design phase of electronic products. nVisage will combine schematic capture and SPICE-compliant circuit simulation with a versatile VHDL entry environment (both text and schematic based) and VHDL simulation. nVisage is based on the Design Explorer platform, which provides design project management features and tool integration.
Versatile design entry
With nVisage’s versatile design entry, engineers will be able to choose the method of design entry that suits them best text or schematic-based VHDL entry, schematic circuit design, or a mixture of all of these. For example, when designing a circuit that will contain one or more FPGAs, engineers can use a mix of schematic and text-based VHDL entry to create the FPGA functionality, and then integrate this with the circuit-level schematics.
Design Compilation
nVisage features Design Compilation a process of verifying the integrity of all the source files of the design. nVisage finds all the inconsistencies between the schematic and VHDL files and offers a choice of changing either the VHDL or the schematic which it then does automatically including pin-swapping.
Integrated components and library management
nVisage includes a comprehensive component library management system that will continue and extend the integration present throughout the product. The component management system will allow engineers to associate multiple models with a component. These models can be schematic symbols, PCB footprints, simulation models, signal integrity models, VHDL representation, etc. The models represent different
views’ of the same component, and the appropriate model is selected by nVisage and other Altium products based on the context in which it is used.
nVisage feature highlights
- Multi-sheet schematic capture with true hierarchical design capabilities
- VHDL design entry fully integrated with schematic capture mix schematic and text-based VHDL entry with schematic circuit design.
- Design Compilation ensures all source files are correct and in synchronization
- Fully-integrated SPICE-compliant mixed signal circuit simulation
- Fully-integrated VHDL simulation
- Runs under Altium’s unique Design Explorer integration platform
- Comprehensive project and document storage management
- Integrated components and extensive library management features
With the release of nVisage, Altium continues to break down barriers to innovation and technological advancement by providing every engineer, designer and developer with easy access to the best possible design tools.
Availability
nVisage will be included as part of the upcoming new version of Altium’s Protel board-level design system, and will be subsequently available as a stand-alone product in Q2, 2002
Pricing for the stand-alone nVisage product is yet to be announced.
nVisage will come with free 12 months membership to the Altium Total Support (ATS) program.
For more information on the new Protel product release including the new nVisage product please go to the Product Preview page on the Protel website at
http://www.protel.com/eproduct/preview.htm.
About Altium Limited
Altium Limited (ASX: ALU), trading as Protel International Limited (ASX: PRI) prior to August 6, 2001, is a leading global developer and supplier of desktop electronic design automation (EDA) and embedded software design tools for the Microsoft Windows environment.
Since the Company’s foundation in 1985 and its release of the world’s first Microsoft Windows' based EDA tool in 1991, Altium has continued to apply the most advanced software design methods to provide powerful, easy-to-use and affordable design software to engineers and electronics designers worldwide.
Altium’s current product brands include Protel, P-CAD, TASKING, Accolade, CircuitMaker and CAMtastic!. These products offer tailored solutions covering a range of hardware and software design processes.
Altium is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and operates a number of sales and support offices in Australia, the United States, Japan and Europe as well as maintaining a large reseller network in all other major markets. More information about the Company and its products and services may be obtained from our new website at www.altium.com.
Altium, Altium Total Support, Protel, P-CAD, TASKING, Accolade, CircuitMaker, CAMtastic!, nVisage, Situs and Topological Autorouting and their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Altium Limited. All other registered or unregistered trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners, and no trademark rights to the same is claimed.
Altium USA Media Contact
Janice Hughes
Hughes Communications, Inc.
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Telephone: +1 860 434 3782
Fax: +1 860 434 3781
Email: janice@hughescom.net
Corporate Media Contact
Jessica Maxwell
ALTIUM LIMITED
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Australia
http://www.altium.com
Telephone: +61 2 99757710
Fax: +61 2 99757720
Email: jessica.maxwell@altium.com.au
