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Electronics Unit, Research School of Physical Sciences & Engineering, Australian National University chooses Altium for the latest in advanced electronics design software.
“Our relationship with Altium enables us to keep abreast of the rapid advances in electronics technologies and techniques.” 
- Tony Cullen
Manager, Electronics Unit, Research School of Physical Sciences & Engineering, Australian National University
The Electronics Unit of Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, is a support group of nine people, mostly engineers and technical officers, engaged in developing electronic equipment to assist the technical needs of staff and students conducting research in selected areas of physics and engineering. Although the scope of work varies on a day-to-day basis, it relates primarily to prototype circuit development. Researchers are constantly pushing boundaries in their fields, and the work of the Electronics Unit is a crucial component to their success. This electronics workshop is among the largest on the campus and is a regular user of Altium software. The workshop manager, Tony Cullen, and his team rely heavily on this software for many of the routine and sometimes unusual aspects in equipment development.
Key challenges
The team is broadly skilled and covers a wide variety of activities in electronics. The equipment they develop is diverse and can be at extremes in technology. The work sometimes dictates switching between software tools or even using multiple tools with periods of infrequent use, so learning and relearning these tools can be a challenge. With rapid advances in the electronics technologies and techniques, keeping abreast of changes remains their greatest challenge.
Meeting the challenges
For Tony’s team, Altium Designer's electronic design software is their tool of choice. Ease of use, tutorial support, flexibility, compatibility with PCB manufacturers, cost per seat, and access to help are all-important factors in this choice. All in the team are users with some concentrating on circuit capture/simulation and others focusing on circuit capture/PCB layout. Currently, a few in the team are learning Altium Designer for designing embedded systems on an FPGA platform, and the NanoBoard, a versatile FPGA development board with swappable target devices that allows for rapid and interactive implementation and debugging of FPGA designs and has been specially designed to take full advantage of Altium Designer flexibility, the ability to easily implement fast logic in FPGAs and speed of development are some of the key benefits Tony’s team are hoping will add to their capability.
Results
An example of this technology at work is the next generation of a high-speed data acquisition interface developed by the team. This unit (shown) uses multiple CPLDs to retrieve nuclear collision data from multi-channel, high-speed precision Analog-to-Digital converter units and pass it through a VME interface to the processing computer.
The team also plays an active role in training, with dozens of technicians receiving their initial training within the Electronics Unit. A high priority is proficiency in applying Altium software to real product development. Shown below is a trainee using Altium Designer's Protel board-level design system to develop a PCB that uses direct digital synthesis chips to generate stable high frequency signals for laser spectroscopy.
Another trainee applied his knowledge of Altium software to develop the circuit and printed circuit boards used for a display in Science Week 2004. The unusual spherical object shown below is part of ANU’s Stromlo Orrery Project. The sphere is covered in glass fragments left after the disintegration of the mirror from the Great Melbourne Telescope in the firestorm at Mount Stromlo in January, 2003. Inside the sphere, swirling light patterns simulate what one might see on the surface of the sun. Twenty-four PCBs inside this sphere use small single chip microcontrollers to communicate and dynamically control the intensity of over 500 LEDs.
About the University
Located within the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University (ANU), the Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering represents the foremost physical sciences and engineering research facility within Australia. The school has a staff of around 200, including more than 70 academic research staff and over 60 PhD students.
The Australian National University has invested in the future of their students by purchasing multiple Altium Designer licenses allowing students to harness the full power of Altium Designer. The Altium Designer license combines the PCB design capabilities of the Protel license with the system-level FPGA design capabilities of the Nexar license, creating a powerful, integrated electronic product development system that caters for students’ needs today and in the future. As well as the Altium Designer system, students at The Australian National University are using Altium’s NanoBoard-NB1. The NanoBoard is the industry's first LiveDesign-enabled FPGA-based development board that allows rapid and interactive implementation and debugging of FPGA designs, and has been specially designed to take full advantage of the Altium Designer family of LiveDesign-enabled design tools.
The Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering has many world-class facilities, and the extensive research infrastructure is supported by outstanding mechanical and electronic workshops, which are capable of fabricating a wide range of sophisticated equipment and instruments.
For more information, visit http://wwwrsphysse.anu.edu.au/.
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