Altium has a long history of innovation in the development of software technology for PCB design. For many years this has been delivered in products that carry the well-known Protel brand name.

Altium, with its Protel product, pioneered Personal Computer-based board design technology, and Protel was the first PCB design tool to make use of the Windows operating system. The combination of high-quality software made available in an easy to buy, learn and use package has made the Protel name synonymous with innovative PCB design technology that represents a ‘smart’ choice for designers.

Over the years, Protel products have been used to design hundreds of thousands of printed circuit boards throughout the world, and have helped many companies and engineers reach their electronic product development goals.

The design landscape is changing

However, the electronics design landscape is currently undergoing some major changes. Electronic product development increasingly requires the integration of a wider range of design technologies and capabilities than just those traditionally associated with board-level design – an area so well serviced by the Protel brand.

At its core, developing the electronics of a product now involves two levels of design – creating the physical platform using discrete components wired together on a PCB, and developing the “embedded intelligence” of the product using programmable elements such as software running on processors. and soft-wired components connected within programmable hardware.

As more design intelligence is migrated to the ‘soft’ realm, the design of the physical and programmable elements of an electronic product are converging. Board design can no longer proceed in isolation from the development of the embedded intelligence it hosts.

Altium Designer – a new brand for a new era

Altium Designer has been created to unify the entire electronic product development process, and to bring together the traditionally separate disciplines of board design, programmable hardware design and software development. Altium Designer incorporates all of the board technology inherent in Protel’s long heritage, and combines it with capabilities targeted at creating and implementing the embedded intelligence programmed onto the board.

With the release of Altium Designer 6, we have modified our licensing options to better reflect the unified nature of the product, and the functionality dictated by today’s electronic product design process. Rather than license Altium Designer based on legacy feature sets – Protel, Nexar, etc. – we have taken the opportunity to unify all license options under the Altium Designer brand.

So what does this mean for you?

It means that you can continue to expect from Altium the high level of innovation and value that has made the Protel brand so great, but extended to cover the entire electronic development process under the Altium Designer name. The Protel brand name will no longer be active, but rest assured that its capabilities, features and spirit will be delivered through Altium Designer into the future – a future that you, with the extended capabilities of Altium Designer, will be well equipped to embrace.