Overview

PADS users - switching is easy!

28% of new customers switched from PADS.  There must be a good reason for so many companies to switch to Altium Designer.  85% of survey respondents said the migration to Altium Designer was “as expected” or “easier than expected”.  Switching to Altium Designer has never
been easier!

Transitioning to Altium Designer

Library migration

You have the option to migrate your library data or take advantage of the fact that Altium Designer is out of the box with over 95,000 library components.  With Live Links to Digi-Key, Farnell and Newark you can download library data in real time from these component suppliers.
Library migration is a simple ‘Wizard-driven’ process that will take your PADS ASCII PCB and CAE decal files and Part Type libraries and convert them directly to Altium Designer library files. Layer mappings can be saved and used to batch import libraries, saving significant migration time.

Design migration

You have the option to maintain old designs with a legacy system and start new with Altium Designer or migrate your designs.
The Import Wizard streamlines the design translation by analyzing the PADS Logic and Layout design files and offering defaults and suggested settings for project structure, layer mapping, PCB footprint naming, and so on. Using DxDesigner or OrCAD with PADS Layout? No problem! The Import Wizard will convert these files as well, allowing you to create a single, unified Altium Designer project.

Ease of use

71% of new customers reported that the learning curve and ease of use was “good” or “excellent” as compared to other tools.  Combine Altium Designer’s ease of use with the reported productivity increases and you will be experiencing the benefits in no time.  New customer also pointed to the online how-to videos and online documentation as contributors to the improved learning curve and ease of use.

95,000 Library Components

Altium Designer delivers over 95,000 components out of the box.  Not only are all parts IPC compliant, but it includes a table driven IPC footprint builder.   Need pricing information?  Altium Designer has Live Links with
Digi-Key, Farnell and Newark to automatically populate your library with component information.  Need 3D models, Altium Designer fully supports the STEP standard for 3D PCB layout and MCAD integration.

Instant FPGA Prototyping

Altium Designer is a complete FPGA design platform that supports Actel, Altera, Lattice and Xilinx.  The award winning NanoBoard 3000 provides an instant prototyping platform that includes a Spartan 3AN or Altera Cyclone III FPGA, Ethernet, USB, PS/2, color TFT LCD panel, SVGA interface and much more.  Also included is a royalty-free IP core library and software compilers for code development.



“The sum total of what Altium Designer offers far exceeds my aging Orcad and PADs platforms. When I started looking for a more updated system, Altium seems to have the cost/performance advantage. Pretty much everyone I had asked recommended it.”
Bill Hawkins Design Engineer,
NightHawk :Labs

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