Universities Quick to Adopt Altium's Nexar Software; Interactive Design Methodology Enables Universities to Focus on Concepts Rather Than Software
SYDNEY, Australia—(BUSINESS WIRE)—May 17, 2004—
Altium Limited (ASX: ALU), a leading developer of
Windows-based electronics design software, is pleased to announce that
three universities -- The University of Tasmania, Australia, Swinburne
University of Technology, Australia and Fachhochschule Amberg-Weiden,
Germany -- have chosen Altium's Nexar software as a platform to teach
undergraduate and graduate engineering courses at their campuses.
Nexar makes it possible for engineering students to quickly and
interactively explore and implement complex designs, enabling
educational institutions to spend more time teaching system design
concepts and less time demonstrating how to use design software.
Altium is currently in talks with other Australian and European
universities and also plans to expand this program to other
universities and educational institutions in the US and Asia so that
engineering students worldwide can take advantage of the latest
technology in engineering design.
Nexar enables a unique "LiveDesign" methodology for embedded
system-level design on an FPGA platform enabling engineers to capture
their design using familiar board-level methodologies, then download
the design directly from their PC to a target FPGA housed on a
nano-level breadboard (NanoBoard) for immediate implementation and
testing. Due to the combination of the libraries of FPGA-based "soft"
components, including microprocessor cores, and the NanoBoard provided
with the software, there is no need to wire physical components
together, making Nexar an ideal design space for teaching situations.
Universities can also reduce their spending on instrumentation and
test equipment such as logic analyzers, as Nexar includes a set of
FPGA-based virtual instruments that can be included in a design for
testing and debugging purposes. Once downloaded to the NanoBoard as
part of the design, these instruments can be accessed via soft front
panels on the PC that mimic the operation of real bench test
instruments.
Since Nexar includes all the capabilities needed to design a
complete microprocessor-based embedded system, it can be utilized in a
wide range of engineering subjects including systems design, hardware
design, embedded software design, HDL, and hardware/software co-design
classes.
The University of Tasmania began using Nexar in March as the
development environment for a fourth year computer systems design
subject and an honors project subject. "Nexar brings many concepts off
the blackboard and enables them to be illustrated practically due to
its circuit-like capture environment and the real-time feedback
provided by the NanoBoard," said Martin Ringrose, Research Engineer,
School of Engineering, University of Tasmania. "Students using Nexar
rather than traditional digital design software are capable of
constructing, testing, and understanding more complex designs. And,
the interactive design and test environment enables students to learn
faster, which means that we can assign them more ambitious design
tasks."
Swinburne University of Technology will introduce Nexar at its
Australian and Malaysian campuses in August to teach an embedded
systems subject. "Swinburne looked closely at the Nexar product and we
were extremely impressed," said Professor David Booth, Dean of
Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology. "Swinburne is
committed to keeping its labs at the forefront of new developments in
electronics design, so we are pleased to be one of the first
universities in the world to provide Nexar's unique flexible design
environment to our undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as
our research staff."
Pricing and availability
To ensure that students have access to the latest software
available, Altium offers a flexible pricing structure for educational
institutions that is substantially discounted from commercial pricing.
To find out more visit www.altium.com/nexar/ or contact your local
Altium sales & support center.
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
to electronics engineers, designers, and developers worldwide.
Altium's products offer tailored solutions covering a range of
hardware and software design processes including the well-known
Protel, P-CAD and TASKING brands. Altium is headquartered in Sydney,
Australia and has sales and support offices in Australia, the United
States, Japan and Europe. More information is available at
www.altium.com.
Altium, 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.
Contact:
Edelman
Sarah Seifert, 650-968-4033 (USA)
sarah.seifert@edelman.com
www.edelman.com
or
Altium Limited
Jessica Maxwell, +61 2 9975 7710
jessica.maxwell@altium.com.au
www.altium.com
