PCB design tool is engineered for collaboration

With PCBWorks, the collaboration process between electrical and mechanical design teams is now a seamless process with linked design data between both environments, allowing designers to maintain their own distinct workflows. Users can make changes to component placement, board shape, and mounting holes on a PCB, and then push those changes to PCBWorks as a managed Engineering Change Order (ECO) to keep design data in sync.

Lifecycles for components can now be separately managed in their respective design environments. This allows an electrical designer to place a component without waiting for mechanical models to be complete, while linked data allows the component to be updated when the 3D model is finished. PCBWorks support for SOLIDWORKS Parasolid file format allows the electrical designer to link directly to native mechanical models for enclosures and component bodies.

PCBWorks includes a number of PCB design features that allows electrical designers to complete their PCB designs in one unified design environment, tying together the schematic capture and layout process.

PCBWorks includes a number of routing options to make the board layout process easier. Differential pair routing helps the designer to route high-speed designs with properly tuned lengths between signal pairs. Schematic templates and components can be stored within a central library in PCBWorks, providing electrical designers with a number of design re-use options for future design projects. With supplier links, electrical designers have direct access to supplier databases, including real-time information on component pricing and availability.

“In this era of connectivity, products are judged by their overall experience, not just the aesthetics or electronic features alone,” said Lawrence Romine, Director of Global New Business Development, Altium. “PCBWorks allows the design process to mirror the product experience by connecting formerly separate modes of design into a single, unified workflow. The traditional barriers between creating something and validating it across these two historically separate domains are gone. Designers can now create the ideal balance between industrial design and electronics functionality.”

“The release of PCBWorks marks a key moment for the engineering community,” added Ben Jordan, Product Manager, Altium. “We are now at a point where the line between electronic and mechanical design is blurred, and PCBWorks is the first PCB design product to address the need for electrical and mechanical design teams to collaborate in a natural way."