What does Renesas’ acquisition of PCB toolmaker Altium mean?
Altium's cloud based platform ALTIUM 365 is on focus for the wide range of Renesas developemnt kits and tools.
https://www.edn.com/what-does-renesas-acquisition-of-pcb-toolmaker-altium-mean/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=link&utm_medium=EDNWeekly-20240222
14 Replies
Yup. Like we said before, Renesas is going to push its product into the Altium design suite
Bye-bye, Altium
Still waiting to see what they really want to do
“It’s about a chip hardware outfit buying a design software firm to bolster its merits of being a solution provider and thus address pressures to lower design complexity and shorten time to market.
That makes sense because Renesas has been assimilating semiconductors from a multitude of suppliers: Intersil, IDT, Dialog, Sequans, and Transphorm. So, it’s crucial that design engineers using Renesas chips can better organize design kits, libraries, and other components effectively.
All this happens mostly at the board level, and Altium’s acquisition aims to facilitate that stage in the system design cycle. And Renesas has vetted these PCB design tools as their user for nearly two years.”
ie, they are going to drive their solutions into Altium and tailor the software to their hardware offerings.
This is going to be bad for Altium users in general. I’d expect more interest in alternatives from Cadence, etc. and if there was ever a time for KiCad to create a “pro” version with advanced features and support, the time is now.
As users I’m interested to hear what @pallavaggarwal and @Umesh Lokhande think about what this means for the future of Altium.
Yeah, Renesas was all in with Altium already from quite some time. I had given an interview in August 2023 for Embedded Software role (driver development for RL78) and seen roles open specifically for CAD ENgineer(Altium). I did wonder once why were they so much tool specific.
Fun fact, Altium's CTO was my boss at Toradex
Leigh Gawne
He developed Altium 365 from scratch :), He built CIIVA (component db management) funded by Toradex, aquired by Altium.
Altium🤐 Until I receive an official email from them
I started using Altium when it was Protel 2.7 ( back in 2003-2004 I guess)
I love Altium so much that I could not use any other tool. Tried many like Kicad, orcad, expedition, pads
Altium is easy to use and since last few years have become power house of features which improves productivity many folds
I can't think of using anything else then Altium for sch and pcb design, so it should stay till I am working
Altium
YouTube
Leigh Gawne on the Launch and Significance of Altium 365
Altium 365 is here, and its CAD-aware approach to cloud-based design is already cutting lead times down by orders of magnitude. How will this affect designers, and how will it affect the electronics industry as a whole? Leigh Gawne, Chief Software Architect at Altium 365, answers these questions and more. Get an exclusive look inside the impact ...
I don't think Renesas will change Altium per their need, and against the Altium's existing market/users
They might add features to help them but keeping the Altium roadmap independent..
Let's see, I am expecting AI use inside Altium moving on
Every time a hardware company buys a software company though…
So wish list would be to tool for design reviews, better to be able to reuse designs, emi emc simulation and analysis, better support for EMS partners, components partners
Let's see
I will touch base with Leigh , he was busy traveling last week
Leigh who? Christie?
CTO of Altium