Altium Designer 6.0 provides a single, unified application that incorporates all the technologies and capabilities necessary for complete electronic product development. It integrates board- and FPGA-level system design, embedded software development for FPGA-based and discrete processors, and PCB layout, editing and manufacturing within a single design environment. This, combined with enhanced support for modern design data, document and project management capabilities, makes Altium Designer 6.0 the first complete solution for electronic product development -- a solution that caters for both today's and tomorrow's development needs.

"In the development of Altium Designer 6.0 we've taken a strategic approach to addressing industry trends and the current and future needs of our customers," commented Nick Martin. "The electronics industry is changing rapidly in response to demands for smaller, faster and more intelligent products. We are committed to providing our customers with the capabilities they need -- not only today, but moving into the future."

With this new release, Altium has strengthened and enhanced almost all areas of the Altium Designer system. Physical platform design has been upgraded to support the high board densities and high-speed signaling found in today's designs. Programmable design support has been extended with increased programmable device and processor coverage and higher levels of physical-level integration. And Altium has made it significantly easier to integrate Altium Designer with company engineering and business management systems commonly found in medium and large-scale organizations.

Altium Designer is unique in that it recognizes and supports the convergence of traditionally disparate design disciplines. Creating an electronic product involves balancing a number of different processes that must come together to meet business objectives. Projects must be completed on time and within budget. As electronics products become more intelligent, designers must become 'smarter' in the way they develop these products in order to meet these business objectives.

Adding increasing levels of intelligence into electronic products means large amounts of data must be processed at higher speeds. This presents significant challenges to designers on both the functional and physical levels, and forces design constraints to be pushed across traditional design tool boundaries. Board-level design, programmable logic design and embedded software development must converge much earlier in the design cycle in order to deal with increasing complexity and interdependence between design processes.

Altium believes that system-wide unification of the various design processes that go to make up a complete electronic product is crucial to maintaining design efficiency into the future. Altium Designer 6.0 is the only unified electronic product development solution available that allows mainstream engineers and designers to take a complete electronic product from concept to completion within a single, integrated design environment.

Customers can see for themselves the benefits that Altium Designer 6.0 brings to electronic product development, by going to http://www.altium.com and viewing the comprehensive range of product information and an extensive set of on-demand video presentations. The videos, presented by Altium applications engineers, detail the new and enhanced features of Altium Designer 6.0 and allow customers to experience the system in action.

Availability and pricing

Altium Designer 6.0 is available for immediate purchase through Altium's sales and support centers worldwide. For pricing and information about Altium Designers flexible product licencing options, customers should contact their local Altium sales and 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 for complete electronic product development to electronics engineers, designers, and developers worldwide.

Altium is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, with sales and support offices in Australia, the United States, Japan, China and Europe -- as well as maintaining a large reseller network in all other major markets. Prior to August 6 2001, Altium Limited traded as Protel International Limited (ASX: PRI).

For more information please visit www.altium.com.

Altium, Altium Designer, Board Insight, 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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Altium Limited
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www.altium.com
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