'Bob's a whizz with high-speed designs!'.'Fred is a top-gun at complex, multi-layer board layout featuring FPGAs and microvias!'.'Jim can simulate with his eyes shut!' Wouldn't it be great if, instead of this experience and knowledge residing 'behind closed doors', or even in closed Forums, it could be pooled as a distinctive resource for the greater good of the electronics community? Well, that's exactly what Altium thinks and has stepped up to the plate as it were to do something about it, with its own, elegant solution - AltiumLive.ĪltiumLive, in a nutshell, is the symbiotic partner to Altium Designer.

Now just think of all that knowledge and experience that is constantly being drawn upon. Different companies, different design projects, but all with a single goal – to deliver a product into the hands of target users that will enrich the lives of the people using it (and of course, generate a pretty pound, dollar, yuan, or euro in the company’s direction for its efforts!). This very same activity is being performed day-in, day-out in numerous locations all over the world. From the design team capturing the design, through to the various members of the supply chain – procurement, fabrication, assembly, test, etc – all these people work as a sort of 'closed community', behind the doors of that particular design project on which they are working. The work involved in getting a product from concept to manufactured reality can sometimes involve quite an impressive number of individuals, each bringing their knowledge and expertise on-board, as part of the wider product development team.

Altium designer for students