This allowed the big EDA folks to sell a low-cost desktop offering against Altium without cannibalizing or devaluing their expensive enterprise tools.Īltium was undeterred. Over a decade ago, in order to defend against the likes of Altium, the bigger EDA companies added “desktop” offerings of their own – PADS from Mentor and OrCAD from Cadence (both by acquisition). Over the years, the company has evolved their Altium Designer suite of board-level system design tools to a very respectable level, giving their larger EDA competitors a good deal of heartburn. Instead, they focused on the “desktop” market, blazing trails in highly capable PCB tools that typically ran on Windows PCs. They based their business on the notion that many designers and small design teams don’t have the budget, patience, or need for the big enterprise-scale board design tools offered by EDA companies like Mentor and Cadence. Altium (long ago known as Protel) has long distinguished themselves as the provider of PCB tools for the mainstream.

Altium designer 20 move 3d body