Altium Limited is an Australian multinational software company that provides

electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools wo ...

software to engineers who design

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in Electrical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a L ...

s. Founded as Protel Systems Pty Ltd in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in 1985, the company has regional headquarters in the United States, Australia, China, Europe, and Japan. Its products are designed for use in a Microsoft Windows environment and used in industries such as automotive, aerospace, defense, and telecommunications. Its flagship product,

Altium Designer Altium Designer (AD) is a PCB and electronic design automation software package for printed circuit boards. It is developed by Australian software company Altium Limited. History Altium Designer was originally launched in 2005 by Altium, ...

, is a software for unified electronics design.

History

Early history

The history of Altium dates to 1985 with the founding of Protel Systems Pty Ltd by electronics designer Nicholas Martin. He was working at the

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, first pro ...

in the 1980s. He saw an opportunity to make the design of electronics product affordable, by marrying the techniques of

electronics design Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools wo ...

to the

PC platform IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...

. The company launched its first product in 1985, a

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...

-based

(PCB) layout and design tool.

Protel PCB Autotrax was a free software application that ran on DOS on an IBM or compatible PC. It was designed by Protel Systems (now Altium), and was one of the first professional printed circuit board CAD applications available for personal computers. It ...

was marketed internationally by HST Technology Pty Ltd. since 1986. In October 1986 the San Diego-based ACCEL Technologies, Inc. acquired marketing and support responsibilities of the PCB program for the US, Canada and Mexico under the name

Tango PCB Autotrax was a free software application that ran on DOS on an IBM or compatible PC. It was designed by Protel Systems (now Altium), and was one of the first professional printed circuit board CAD applications available for personal computers. It ...

. In 1987, Protel launched the circuit diagram editor

Protel Schematic Autotrax was a free software application that ran on DOS on an IBM or compatible PC. It was designed by Protel Systems (now Altium), and was one of the first professional printed circuit board CAD applications available for personal computers. It ...

for DOS. This was followed by

Autotrax Autotrax was a free software application that ran on DOS on an IBM or compatible PC. It was designed by Protel Systems (now Altium), and was one of the first professional printed circuit board CAD applications available for personal computers. It ...

and

Easytrax Autotrax was a free software application that ran on DOS on an IBM or compatible PC. It was designed by Protel Systems (now Altium), and was one of the first professional printed circuit board CAD applications available for personal computers. It ...

in 1988. In the 1990s, the company began developing a unified electronics design system, which uses a single data model to hold all of the design data required to create a product. FPGA, PCB and embedded software development processes were unified with a common project view and data model. A variety of editing tools could then be used to access and manipulate the design, covering areas such as board layout and design,

schematic capture Schematic capture or schematic entry is a step in the design cycle of electronic design automation (EDA) at which the electronic diagram, or electronic schematic of the designed electronic circuit is created by a designer. This is done interactiv ...

routing (EDA) In electronic design, wire routing, commonly called simply routing, is a step in the design of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and integrated circuits (ICs). It builds on a preceding step, called placement, which determines the location of each ...

, testing, analysis and FPGA design. In 1991, Protel released Advanced Schematic/

PCB PCB may refer to: Science and technology * Polychlorinated biphenyl, an organic chlorine compound, now recognized as an environmental toxin and classified as a persistent organic pollutant * Printed circuit board, a board used in electronics * ...

1.0 for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

, the world's first Windows-based PCB design system. It also began acquisition of various companies with the technologies needed to create a unified electronics design solution, including Accolade Design Automation in 1998.

1999-2010; IPO and name change to Altium

In August 1999, Altium went public on the

Australian Securities Exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd or ASX, is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or confused within Australia as ...

under symbol (ASX:ALU). The company continued to develop and release new versions of this design tool, including

Protel 98 Altium Designer (AD) is a PCB and electronic design automation software package for printed circuit boards. It is developed by Australian software company Altium Limited. History Altium Designer was originally launched in 2005 by Alti ...

in 1998,

Protel 99 Altium Designer (AD) is a PCB and electronic design automation software package for printed circuit boards. It is developed by Australian software company Altium Limited. History Altium Designer was originally launched in 2005 by Altium, ...

in 1999 and

Protel 99 SE Altium Designer (AD) is a PCB and electronic design automation software package for printed circuit boards. It is developed by Australian software company Altium Limited. History Altium Designer was originally launched in 2005 by Altium, ...

in 2000. In 2000, Altium acquired ACCEL with whom they previously partnered with in 1986. In 2001, the company changed its name from Protel Systems to Altium and continued to expand throughout the United States,

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

. It also made more acquisitions including embedded software developer Tasking in 2001 for A$73.4 million and EDA software distributor Hoschar AG in 2002. Protel DXP was issued in 2003, Protel 2004 in 2004,

6.0 in 2005. In 2010, Altium acquired Morfik Technology Pty Ltd., a developer of visual design tools for engineering and deploying cloud-based software applications. Morfik's founders originally worked for Altium/Protel before leaving to found the company after Altium's IPO.

2011-present; Expansion and acquisitions

In 2011, Altium announced it would be expanding its presence in Shanghai, China in the second half of 2011 to take advantage of lower wages. On October 15, 2012, the Altium board removed Nick Martin as CEO and named executive vice chairman Kayvan Oboudiyat to replace him. On January 16, 2014, Altium announced Kayvan Oboudiyat's retirement and succession by Aram Mirkazemi as CEO. In May of the same year, Altium announced that the core R&D operations for its flagship PCB CAD tools would again relocate in a "cost neutral" move to San Diego, California. In 2015, Altium acquired

Octopart Octopart.com is a search engine for electronic and industrial parts headquartered in New York, NY. It aggregates parts from distributors and manufacturers online, making them easy to search for and purchase. It is free for users, and as of August ...

, a search engine for electronic and industrial parts. The same year, it acquired the cloud-based electronic component management system company Ciiva. Additional acquisitions by the company have included enterprise PLM integration solutions provider Perception Software in 2016 and cloud-based EDA tool company

Upverter Upverter is an electronic circuit design system delivered in a web browser, which enables hardware engineers to design, share, and review schematics and printed circuit boards. It additionally features the ability to generate a bill of materials ...

in 2017. On 7 June 2021, it was revealed that Altium rejected a bid from

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

valuing the company at $5.05 billion AUD.

Products

Altium develops software that is used for designing of electronic products including printed circuit board. Its products are designed for use in a Microsoft Windows environment and used in industries such as automotive, aerospace, defense, and telecommunications.

Altium Designer

Altium Designer is a

and

software package for

s. It allows engineers to design and customize their own circuit boards. Altium Designer is considered the flagship software of the company.

Autotrax / Easytrax

Autotrax is the original Protel PCB design software used for DOS, released in the 1980s.

CircuitMaker

CircuitMaker is

software for

designs targeted at the hobby,

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

, and maker community. CircuitMaker is available as

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

, and the hardware designed with it may be used for commercial and non-commercial purposes without limitations. The first non-beta version was released on January 17, 2016.

Other products

* Altium 365 - electronics product design platform that unites PCB design, MCAD, data management, and teamwork. * Altium Concord Pro – Available as part of Altium enterprise solutions. Single source for component data, real-time sourcing information, component traceability within designs, and collaboration tool. * Altium NEXUS – Available as part of Altium enterprise solutions. Team-based PCB workflow solution designed to provide the transparency. * AltiumLive – the cloud-based community that connects Altium designers, collaborators, suppliers, manufacturers and customers. * Altium Vault – Formal release, re-use and design data management server software. *

CircuitStudio Altium Limited is an Australian multinational software company that provides electronic design automation software to engineers who design printed circuit boards. Founded as Protel Systems Pty Ltd in Australia in 1985, the company has regional ...

– PCB design software tool * NanoBoard – reconfigurable hardware development platform. *

P-CAD P-CAD was the brand name of Personal CAD Systems, Inc., a California based manufacturer of electronic design automation software. It manufactured a CAD software available for personal computers. The company was divested into ACCEL Technologies wh ...

- Obtained through AccelEDA acquisition, retired in 2006. * PDN Analyzer - analyze Power Distribution Network (PDN) voltage and current performance *

TASKING TASKING GmbH is a provider of embedded-software development tools headquartered in Munich, Germany. History Founded as a software consulting company in 1977, TASKING developed its first C compiler in 1986. In 1988, its first embedded toolset f ...

– An

embedded system An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as ...

s software development tool.