Altium

Envision – what's new, changing and over the horizon     Welcome to the October 2009 issue of Envision, our regularly updated collection of insights, news and views from Altium. In this update we ponder the practicality of a return to hands-on design, learn how Volkswagen's research group in the US creates autonomous vehicle systems, find out how to fast track the USB part of a design and check out the clever new NanoBoard 3000 modular enclosures – plus more.       A renaissance in hands-on design     As electronics design becomes more complex and multifaceted, designers are relying more on design simulation to debug and effectively create virtual prototypes. But if development, debugging and prototyping could all be performed on a configurable hardware development board, design could return to being an exploratory and creative hands-on experience. Read the full story       Creating car electronics you didn’t even know you wanted     The Volkswagen Group of America Electronics Research Lab is developing the electronics you will use tomorrow, today. Amongst a host of forward thinking concepts, the R&D center ‘think tank’ has used Altium Designer to develop hardware for two award winning autonomous vehicles and an entertainment interface for a radical Audi concept car. Read the full story       Much more than just a nice box     Altium’s new NanoBoard 3000 modular enclosure kit completes the concept to deployment loop by providing a comprehensive set of enclosure options that can make your design a product reality. Designed from the ground up to get the most out of the NanoBoard 3000, the enclosures let you create a professional device that's ready for demonstration or deployment in the field. Read the full story       Discussion: High-level software for embedded-system design   Will high-level system architects supplant traditional C coders and hardware engineers? Join Altium, Mathworks, EDN and Jack Ganssle for the event that will certainly provoke debate. This online panel discussion will be broadcast on Oct 28 (12PM EDT) and includes a live Q&A session for you to be part of the conversation. Register now - you won't want to miss this!     What are we doing, right now?   See what’s happening at Altium, in real-time. Follow us on twitter to find out about the latest news, events, videos and design tutorials. There’s so much going on, can we actually condense it to 140 characters or less?

OCTOBER TECH TIP The challenge of designing a USB interface USB is a versatile, cheap and very popular serial interface. If you’ve put off implementing it in your products because of its technical complexity, then you’ll be interested to know that Altium Designer coupled to a NanoBoard 3000 can fast-track you into designing with USB.   What’s cooking in the Altium Labs They’re a clever, industrious lot in the Altium Labs, and you can now join in by sampling their latest wares and influencing the end result, before it’s released. Read on to find out how.   Not your average FPGA-based development board Check out the dedicated NanoBoard 3000 website for a great overview of what it’s all about. There’s a guided tour, information and tech specs, plus a great set of training videos that show you how it all works in practice.   Meet the Envision team There are real people behind the creation of Envision, and we've stopped hiding.

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