AD15 Announced

[Rufus]

http://www.altium.com/en/altium/press-center/press-releases/altium-announces-altium-designer-15-ease-high-speed-pcb-design

Basically improved high speed diff pair features, IPC-2581 and Gerber X2 support.

[Batang]

Finally they are releasing the service pack for AD14.

Actually I would just settle for solid software that did not need to be updated and or re-installed every couple of months.

Altium stop adding features for a while and go for stability.

Some History for AD 14:

Version 14.3.15 Build:35511   Date: 02 October 2014
Version 14.3.14 Build:34663   Date: 25 August 2014
Version 14.3.13 Build:34012   Date: 09 July 2014
Version 14.3.12 Build:33957   Date: 01 July 2014
Version 14.3.11 Build:33708   Date: 13 June 2014
Version 14.3.10 Build:33625   Date: 4 June 2014
Version 14.3.9  Build:33548   Date: 29 May 2014
Version 14.2.5  Build: 32823  Date:5 May 2014
Version 14.2.4  Build: 31871  Date:5 March 2014
Version 14.2.3  Build: 31718  Date:19 February 2014
Version 14.1.5  Build:30772   Date:5 December 2013
Version 14.0.9  Build:30380   Date: 21 October 2013

And I thought MS was bad, well at least they released a fix for Win8, it's called Win7.

Cheers.

[Precipice]

Hmm, there's a lot of talk about differential pair management there - when that's the easy case for length matching. I do hope they roll out the terminated case for proper (DDR in my case) buses - it's a right pain managing matched length at the moment when there are termination resistors in series.

Also, yes - FFS, Altium, please fix some outstanding bugs! The new teardrop engine would be nice if it actually frigging worked! So close, yet so unusable.

[snoopy]

One of the Achilles heels of Altium is moving components with tracks connected to them which always makes a mess with crossed tracks that you have to clean up. You'd think after all of this time they would have addressed this fundamental issue of pcb layout.

Also they should be offering an easy to use package that allows you to build 3D models of components. I'm trying to use freecad but have no clue even after watching some videos !!

[EEVblog]

Hmm, there's a lot of talk about differential pair management there - when that's the easy case for length matching. I do hope they roll out the terminated case for proper (DDR in my case) buses - it's a right pain managing matched length at the moment when there are termination resistors in series.

They were working on series termination resistor support back in 2007, I help define the requirements and saw some attempts.
Turns out it wasn't that easy for lots of technical implementation reasons.
Doesn't mean it can't be done of course, but I believe it's quite messy programing and data structure wise. Not sure if that's still the case.

[tszaboo]

Well, It looks like I will skip AD14. And 13. And 12. And 11. Maybe I can convince the management to spend the money on some new features. I highly doubt it. Which is sad.

[mengfei]

i'm still on 08 lol

there was budget to upgrade to 14 but I said after the bugs have been ironed out that's the time to upgrade!
But it's seem like there will be no end to those bugs as AD keeps on adding features that don't even sometimes work or makes things worst 

[borisz]

I just stopped the subscription. I won't pay anymore to be beta tester.
One of their bugs generated us a great loss and delay. Via stiching maked shorts all over the PCB and DRC didn't seen them at all.
I don't need bugs anymore.

[ehughes]

What happened with the via stiching?  I use this feature on every board without issue.    What was your process that cause the short?   You said the DRC did not catch the bug?

[Wilksey]

So...
I have seen a TON of updates for AD14 come through at work, but I still have an old machine with AD10 on, are there any REAL benefits to upgrade 10 to 14 or even 14 to 15?

Are there any benefits from AD 14.2.3.blah blah build xyz to AD 14.3.1 etc?

Seems to be a massive download and tedious install process for little benefit, or am I overlooking the <insert new feature here>.

[Bored@Work]

I just stopped the subscription. I won't pay anymore to be beta tester.
One of their bugs generated us a great loss and delay. Via stiching maked shorts all over the PCB and DRC didn't seen them at all.
I don't need bugs anymore.

Is that Altium's top-notch Chinese programming talent at work?

[tszaboo]

So...
I have seen a TON of updates for AD14 come through at work, but I still have an old machine with AD10 on, are there any REAL benefits to upgrade 10 to 14 or even 14 to 15?

Are there any benefits from AD 14.2.3.blah blah build xyz to AD 14.3.1 etc?

Seems to be a massive download and tedious install process for little benefit, or am I overlooking the <insert new feature here>.

Yes, because from December it will cost more. Also the sales guy take on  a white sheet with two holes for the eyes and said "BOO".

[Wilksey]

Lol,
I meant feature wise, I don't care about price, that's down to the penny pinchers, aka, upper management...

[Bud]

Is that Altium's top-notch Chinese programming talent at work?

From Altium Wiki page

 "Development continues to be a global effort, with product development staff in United States, Ukraine, Australia and the Netherlands."

 

[ehughes]

AD14 was a big improvement.    The ability to design rigid flex,  manage the layer stack properly and see the folded result (and export it) is a big deal if you do rigid flex design.     If you have ever had to do a complex flex circuit,  you would see the value immediately.

The IPC-2581 is interesting to me.   I spend some time looking at the file format from something AD generated and it is very simple (and hackable).    I will be preparing a couple test designs to send out using the format.   Having the layer stack,  outline, BOM, Pick-Place, etc all in one XML file is very nice to me.  (ODB++ is ugly!)  It looks very easy to be able to write tools to manipulate the format for a custom workflow.

[Bored@Work]

From Altium Wiki page

 "Development continues to be a global effort, with product development staff in United States, Ukraine, Australia and the Netherlands."

 

Might not be the whole truth. They had the development in Shanghai, and moved it to San Diego in May this year, except their IoT development. They left that in Shanghai. When announcing this, their marketing department farted

Being close to technology partners in an emerging market has been a driver for the presence in Shanghai. Most parts of the objectives behind that journey have been achieved.

If the objective was to burn money and reducing quality, well, mission accomplished.

[Wilksey]

Hi ehughes,

Thanks for the response, very useful.

From your understanding, is it worth updating from 14 to 15?

I know it depends on what you use it for, but the footprint designer is a very nice feature of AD, would it be worth it, do you think, to upgrade because of this alone?

Thanks

[ehughes]

Not sure on 15 yet.    I am still evaluating the new features.     Particularly the IPC2581 support.    The list of new stuff is quite larte

The other new feature is "true variants".   It will just take me some time to get through that and the xSignal high speed design stuff.

[Wilksey]

Would be interested to hear your thoughts / evaluation of AD15 (when you have completed your evaluation / testing of course!)