Mouser Electronics, Inc., a top design engineering resource and global distributor for semiconductors and electronic components, has announced a new partnership with Altium which sees live links connecting Altium Designer and Mouser’s extensive part information, placing it right onto the engineer’s desktop.

The new links are now part of AltiumLive, Altium’s new ecosystem for the seriously professional electronics designer, announced earlier in March 2011 alongside its new release of Altium Designer. AltiumLive and the Altium Designer combine to help design engineers better manage data and deliver new content to speed product development. Using AltiumLive, designers are freed to create and innovate – untangling the design data knot and streamlining the design process at every stage of product development.

“As a company, we’re driven by supplying the newest products and emerging technologies for the design chain,” states Kevin Hess, Mouser Vice President of Technical Marketing. “Having current part information and immediate component access is a huge design advantage. Combine that with our company’s sharp focus on the newest components, and it means engineers are able to more quickly produce new designs that provide a clear edge in product lifecycles, features and speed to market.”

“It’s essential for Altium to add as many relationships with the key parts suppliers serving the design industry as possible, so that the AltiumLive ecosystem becomes the “go to” portal for the seriously professional designer,” says Alan Smith, Associate Director Corporate Communications, Altium. “Mouser is a trusted and proven international distributor known for being serious about support and service. All of our customers now have a direct download capability that’s available to Mouser for component information and pricing – we can take them further into the supply chain. This is a major step for us and our growing customer base in building a design ecosystem of the future right now.”

With its broad product line and unsurpassed customer service, Mouser offers customers the latest, most technologically advanced components for their newest design projects. Mouser Electronics’ website is updated daily and searches more than 7 million products to locate over 1.8 million orderable part numbers available for easy online purchase. Mouser.com also houses an industry-first interactive catalog, data sheets, supplier-specific reference designs, application notes, technical design information, and engineering tools.

» Contact details for Mouser Electronics, Inc.

Appoints Nanosoft as value added distributor and recruits additional value added resellers in Russia and the CIS

Altium has appointed Nanosoft as its new value added distributor in a rapid expansion of its business in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Altium and Nanosoft are actively recruiting resellers, with 15 already technically and commercially trained and certified. Altium expects to double this number over the next 12 months to expand sales and support across the CIS.

This new sales channel will report to Altium country manager Evgeny Shikhov.

Altium is expanding its business in Russia and the CIS to tap into what it believes is a huge potential for its next generation electronics design solutions. According to the Information-Analytical Center, the Russian electronics industry has more than 2,500 enterprises and 360,000 employees.[1] Large investments see the sector continuing to expand.

Altium is also currently running a large amnesty campaign for users of pirated copies of its older P-CAD and Protel design software. The amnesty, launched in November and supported by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), supports the migration of users of this pirated software to the latest version of Altium Designer with a one-year amnesty for each legalized seat. Altium Designer is the successor to the well known and widely used P-CAD and Protel design solutions. In a single solution, using a single data model, it lets designers create products in all three design domains: PCB layout, programmable hardware and software.

The new sales channel is the infrastructure Altium will now use to grow new business, taking Altium Designer to new customers across Russia and the CIS. “The new channel structure, with Nanosoft as value added distributor responsible for channel, sales and marketing activities in Russia and the CIS, is the next major step to developing this exciting market,” said Martin Harris, Vice President EMEA at Altium.

“Most importantly, we can now get closer to our customers across the region to support them in modernizing their electronics design processes. The next generation of electronic products will require a higher level of connectivity with the web. And the electronics embedded in products continue to represent more and more of the overall value of those products. Being able to manage the electronics design processes effectively without stifling innovation is what will define “success” in electronics design in the future. Altium Designer delivers that required level of electronics design data management today.

“Electronics designers in Russia and the CIS can now compete on a level playing field with competitors anywhere in the world.

“In Nanosoft, Altium has a modern, innovative, highly professional value added distribution and marketing organization as a partner.”

“We are proud to represent and distribute one of the best in class solutions in the Russian and CIS market,” said General Director of Nanosoft Maxim Egorov. “Altium products, which cover the demands of the electronic industry, will perfectly fit our business. So we can provide our 100+ partner-channel with a truly balanced portfolio of CAD solutions.”

» Contact Details for Altium

Design Engineers can see and use component parameters and enjoy local price and stock availability

Premier Farnell plc, the leading multi-channel, high service distributor supporting millions of engineers and purchasing professionals worldwide, announces Altium and EMA Design Automation™ have integrated Premier Farnell’s DesignLink, a new web service environment that provides an electronic interface to major Computer Aid Design (CAD) tools. DesignLink allows electronic designer engineers to immediately search and find parts from within their CAD design environment, without ever having to leave the program.

Altium Designer with DesignLink offers engineers the ability to check local prices and delivery as well as vital product attribute information. It will be available to customers globally. Users of Cadence’s OrCAD in the United States can now see similar information via EMA’s Component Information Portal (CIP), a bridge software to Cadence’s OrCAD tool.

The DesignLink Coupling Interface allows designers to take manufacturer’s data and use it directly in their schematic without additional research; it interfaces directly with Premier Farnell companies’ websites product data giving access to over 4,000,000 items from 3,500 leading manufacturers, all with data and pricing in local language and currencies.

“As we increase our focus on the needs of the global electronic design engineering segment, expand our online capability and continue to internationalise our business, DesignLink adds another innovative solution from Premier Farnell, which makes us a leading provider of product, information, software and services to meet the needs of our global customers,” said Harriet Green, CEO of Premier Farnell. “We are excited about DesignLink, and the value it will add for our engineering customers globally in the early product design phase. Like element14, our new online community, DesignLink will give our customers access to significant product data and information.”

“We are very pleased that Altium has embedded DesignLink into Altium Designer, allowing electronic design engineers to search instantly for information and products,” said Randall Restle, Director of Global Technical Marketing at Premier Farnell. “This new innovation will also allow engineers to find product availability, pricing and even new products for their designs without having to leave their design environment.”

Premier Farnell invites manufacturers of CAD tools to contact them to discuss how they too can implement the DesignLink interface with their design environment. Premier Farnell is rapidly increasing their global capability to interface with a wide range of different CAD platforms as they expand their support to meet the unique needs of their electronic design engineering customers.

» Contact Details for Premier Farnell

Altium Innovation Station Video

Altium, who have recently announced a global distribution agreement with Digi-Key, offer a unique unified electronics design solution known as the Innovation Station.

The Innovation Station gives designers everything needed for rapid prototyping, concept exploration and device experimentation. Designers can create functionality in programmable hardware, and then deploy to physical hardware for testing and analysis, without having to create any custom prototype boards.

You can see more on Altium’s Innovation Station on their website here:
http://www.altium.com/AltiumInnovationStation/

» Read more Altium Distribution News Releases

Digi-Key Corporation and Altium Limited Announce Global Distribution Agreement

Digi-Key Corporation, a global distributor of electronic components, and Altium, the world leader in unified electronics design, have announced a global distribution agreement.

Digi-Key will distribute Altium’s Desktop NanoBoard, which will include a 12-month timed Altium Designer license. The Desktop NanoBoard will be delivered with a standard set of plug-in peripheral boards and a choice of one of three FPGA daughter boards.

Digi-Key will also carry the extended range of NanoBoard plug-in peripheral and FPGA daughter boards. These options extend the design choice and freedom available to designers.

Altium products stocked by Digi-Key are featured in its print and online catalogs and are available for purchase directly from Digi-Key.

Altium markets the combination of the Desktop NanoBoard and Altium Designer, Altium’s unified electronics design solution, as the ultimate Innovation Station. The Innovation Station gives designers everything needed for rapid prototyping, concept exploration and device experimentation. Designers can create functionality in programmable hardware, and then deploy to physical hardware for testing and analysis, without having to create any custom prototype boards.

Because the NanoBoard is reconfigurable and independent of device vendor, designers are not constrained by having to choose the final device at the beginning of the design process. They can create, test and analyze functionality in different devices using the NanoBoard, and switch between devices to compare the performance in the actual design. The NanoBoard’s automatic configuration protocol makes this a simple process: swap the plug-in boards, and the NanoBoard reconfigures to the FPGA device or set of peripherals without having to change the design.

Nick Martin, Altium’s CEO, said, “Altium is passionate about putting the best available design solutions into the hands of every electronics designer and engineer as quickly as possible.

“This agreement with Digi-Key is a significant step toward helping make this a reality. We are impressed with Digi-Key’s global coverage and commitment to first-class customer service. And we feel aligned with them in the way we both want to make our customers successful.

“With Altium’s Innovation Station, Digi-Key’s customers have a future-proofed, vendor independent, ‘live design’ development environment. They can use a reconfigurable development platform to create rapid prototypes, explore new concepts, and experiment with different devices in ways they couldn’t do previously.”

Digi-Key President and COO Mark Larson said, “A very appealing aspect of Altium’s Innovation Station is that, straight out of the box, it delivers a product development solution for electronic design engineers. For Digi-Key, Altium’s Innovation Station is consistent with our desire to provide our customers with products that are practical, relevant, and state of the art.”

» Contact Details for Digi-Key Corporation

» View the Altium Innovation Station video