Renesas to buy Altium

[Sal Ammoniac]

Renesas announced today that they're acquiring Altium for $5.9B.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/japanese-chipmaker-renesas-buy-australian-software-firm-altium-59-bln-2024-02-14/

[SiliconWizard]

Damn.

[ataradov]

Well, they will need to make those $5.9B back, so there is probably no reason to expect their marketing to change.

[delfinom]

It's a strange mash up really. Renesas will probably try to use it to shovel some of their parts, but on the other hand they are so hostile to deal with if you aren't an automotive customer or buying millions of parts per day that I don't see why they bothered.

[SiliconWizard]

Given the very large user base of professionals for AD, if Renesas makes great and dependable libraries for all of their parts (which they probably will), this has a good chance of getting many more customers.

But yeah, nothing of that kind is ever guaranteed, and this is a fricking large amount of money. Completely crazy. Such an investment would be already massive for getting, say, their own foundries, but for just a software? We'll see. Not really my problem I must admit.

I just don't like this seemingly neverending concentration of power. I think there should be economic rules to force a company to split up into smaller ones if it reaches a certain valuation. It would be a simple and effective way of fighting this concentration. Of course that may not be everyone's opinion, and some may argue that concentrating companies makes the whole more efficient (if that was the only thing to consider here), which I actually highly doubt anyway.

[ataradov]

There is one huge thing it will give them. Assuming cloud spyware is mandatory, they will instantly know what competitor products are being used in what type of designs. I'm not sure this is enough to justify the purchase, but it is not nothing.

[DrGeoff]

The offer is $68.5 per share, which is a huge premium over the $40/share approx that it was trading at.
Maybe they are eyeing the Altium revenue, which is quite good overall.

[SiliconWizard]

There is one huge thing it will give them. Assuming cloud spyware is mandatory, they will instantly know what competitor products are being used in what type of designs. I'm not sure this is enough to justify the purchase, but it is not nothing.

That's a pretty good, and concerning at the same time, additional point.

[ataradov]

And then you see "AI" saying "I see you are placing competitor's product X, have you considered using Renesas product Y? Click here in the next 4 hours to secure a discounted price of $$".

[Shonky]

Well, they will need to make those $5.9B back, so there is probably no reason to expect their marketing to change.

Not sure if serious, but that's not how business acquisitions work usually.

[brucehoult]

Well, they will need to make those $5.9B back, so there is probably no reason to expect their marketing to change.

Not sure if serious, but that's not how business acquisitions work usually.

How do they work?

"work" or "work out"?

If the directors of Renesas don't genuinely expect to make an additional $5.9B in profits (and more), NPV, from buying Altium then they should not be doing it -- and their shareholders should be suing them.

Of course M&A very often don't result in the promised synergies, but the consultants and lawyers already got paid.

[notsob]

How many Altium shares do you still have Dave

[.RC.]

How many Altium shares do you still have Dave

They might want the Altium building back that he currently uses for a lab.

[Ice-Tea]

Well, there goes the neighbourhood

Given the very large user base of professionals for AD, if Renesas makes great and dependable libraries for all of their parts (which they probably will), this has a good chance of getting many more customers.

But they don't have to buy Altium for that. Prime example: Wuerth. They have great Altium libraries, I'm sure it helps them land a customer or two and they didn't have to buy the company for that.

If the directors of Renesas don't genuinely expect to make an additional $5.9B in profits (and more), NPV, from buying Altium then they should not be doing it -- and their shareholders should be suing them.

They don't have to earn $6B in profits, that's not how it works. If you have 100k cash on your balance and then buy a 100k$ building with that money nothing really changes for you or your shareholders.

It's the cost of the capital that needs to be compensated, not the capital itself.

[Shonky]

Well, they will need to make those $5.9B back, so there is probably no reason to expect their marketing to change.

Not sure if serious, but that's not how business acquisitions work usually.

How do they work?

"work" or "work out"?

If the directors of Renesas don't genuinely expect to make an additional $5.9B in profits (and more), NPV, from buying Altium then they should not be doing it -- and their shareholders should be suing them.

Of course M&A very often don't result in the promised synergies, but the consultants and lawyers already got paid.

They are investing in the company. Yes the acquisition provides (well should provide) additional income from that business unit. But its value doesn't go to zero so that they need to get all of the purchase price back. If anything, a good acquisition grows in value on its own and so they shouldn't "need to make their money back".

Over which period does a business expect to earn their entire investment back. 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? Good P/E is say 10-20 i.e. 10-20 years and in that time they should be regaining the initial investment then.

[RoGeorge]

they will need to make those $5.9B back

Maybe such acquisitions are not meant for profit.  These look like strategic moves, driven by politics and power.  High tech industries are slowly captured under a single umbrella, one company at a time.  I wonder why.

[brucehoult]

Well, they will need to make those $5.9B back, so there is probably no reason to expect their marketing to change.

Not sure if serious, but that's not how business acquisitions work usually.

How do they work?

"work" or "work out"?

If the directors of Renesas don't genuinely expect to make an additional $5.9B in profits (and more), NPV, from buying Altium then they should not be doing it -- and their shareholders should be suing them.

Of course M&A very often don't result in the promised synergies, but the consultants and lawyers already got paid.

They are investing in the company. Yes the acquisition provides (well should provide) additional income from that business unit. But its value doesn't go to zero so that they need to get all of the purchase price back. If anything, a good acquisition grows in value on its own and so they shouldn't "need to make their money back".

Over which period does a business expect to earn their entire investment back. 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? Good P/E is say 10-20 i.e. 10-20 years and in that time they should be regaining the initial investment then.

Did you miss the "NPV"?

[Smokey]

Wow.  Just read about this.
All acquisitions create a certain amount of chaos.  Especially around continuing support for products that the acquiring company might not care about.  Renesas has been on an acquisition spree over the past few years, mostly of companies with a decent catalog of products.  I felt the pain of being on the wrong end of a product that renesas didn't care to support well.  It will be interesting to see what they do with Altium considering they make essentially one thing. 

Let's hope support actually increases.

[tszaboo]

Second thought: Japanese companies operate a bit differently, they buy anything slightly related to their business. I worked for an EMS long time ago. They were a concrete making company. That bought a construction company because constructions use concrete. Then they bought a shipmaker because concrete was transported by ships. Then they bought an electronics company because ship has electronics in them. Did we do ship electronics? No, we were assembling Panasonic car radios and JVC flatscreen televisions. It doesn't ahve to make sense for them.

First though: Oh hell no. There are so many nefarius things they can do now, I'm really afraid. How is it going to be, you want to place a Renesas component from the online parts library, and lawyers come to your office asking you to sign an NDA to see the footprint and the datasheet?

[Daixiwen]

Let's hope support actually increases.

Given the price they paid I'd say their priority will be to increase revenue and cut costs

[EEVblog]

The offer is $68.5 per share, which is a huge premium over the $40/share approx that it was trading at.
Maybe they are eyeing the Altium revenue, which is quite good overall.

Altium has zero debt, it's been a pure cash cow for 30 years.

That's one heck of a cash out for Aram. I believe original founder Nick Martin sold most or all of his shares after he was booted out.
I feel sorry for Nick, he's a nice guy, and a nerdy tech guy who just didn't know how to run a business for profit. Aram did and it payed off for him.

I was this close to buying shares at 10 cents 

[EEVblog]

Second thought: Japanese companies operate a bit differently, they buy anything slightly related to their business.

I wonder is this does anything for the big US government customers? Japan is a US ally, so I'm guessing no impact.
When Altium packed up and moved to China all the US government bodies said they would stop using the package, oops.

[iMo]

Second thought: Japanese companies operate a bit differently, they buy anything slightly related to their business.

I wonder is this does anything for the big US government customers? Japan is a US ally, so I'm guessing no impact.
When Altium packed up and moved to China all the US government bodies said they would stop using the package, oops.

Which US gov bodies use Altium?
Purchasing of "strategic" goods is subject to many anti- anti- anti- acts/laws in US, especially when the gov body is purchasing something..

[delfinom]

Second thought: Japanese companies operate a bit differently, they buy anything slightly related to their business.

I wonder is this does anything for the big US government customers? Japan is a US ally, so I'm guessing no impact.
When Altium packed up and moved to China all the US government bodies said they would stop using the package, oops.

Not really, US FedRAMP requirements basically exclusively mandate US citizenship for the operational end of cloud and software services, there is no exception for allies. But that's just for all the cloud junk which Altium is heavily pushing. These requirements are also infectious of contracts and contractors have to follow them too if they are working on govt contracts.

For plain software without the spyware and cloud the rules aren't as strict.

Though I work with US govt bodies, they don't do any kind of hardware design, it's long been outsourced to contractors who can use whatever.

[nctnico]

The offer is $68.5 per share, which is a huge premium over the $40/share approx that it was trading at.
Maybe they are eyeing the Altium revenue, which is quite good overall.

Altium has zero debt, it's been a pure cash cow for 30 years.

That's one heck of a cash out for Aram. I believe original founder Nick Martin sold most or all of his shares after he was booted out.
I feel sorry for Nick, he's a nice guy, and a nerdy tech guy who just didn't know how to run a business for profit. Aram did and it payed off for him.

I was this close to buying shares at 10 cents 

I should have mined 1000 Bitcoins... I should not have sold them when they where worth €10 each... I should not have sold them when they where worth €100 each... I should not have sold them when they where worth €1000 each... I should not have sold them when they where worth €10000 each... The list goes on... 

[nctnico]

I just don't like this seemingly neverending concentration of power. I think there should be economic rules to force a company to split up into smaller ones if it reaches a certain valuation. It would be a simple and effective way of fighting this concentration. Of course that may not be everyone's opinion, and some may argue that concentrating companies makes the whole more efficient (if that was the only thing to consider here), which I actually highly doubt anyway.

What I see is that companies like Renesas are more like a lava-lamp. Blobs get gobbled up and new blobs emerge.

[MT]

Renesas announced today that they're acquiring Altium for $5.9B.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/japanese-chipmaker-renesas-buy-australian-software-firm-altium-59-bln-2024-02-14/

A billion to much!

[Jamieson]

hey at least they didn't get bought out and assimilated into the mentor graphics borg

[Jamieson]

Second thought: Japanese companies operate a bit differently, they buy anything slightly related to their business.

I wonder is this does anything for the big US government customers? Japan is a US ally, so I'm guessing no impact.
When Altium packed up and moved to China all the US government bodies said they would stop using the package, oops.

Which US gov bodies use Altium?
Purchasing of "strategic" goods is subject to many anti- anti- anti- acts/laws in US, especially when the gov body is purchasing something..

US gov or gov contractors (national labs, etc.) are facing rapidly increasing pushback to purchasing *anything* at the moment. There is always some term or condition that cannot be agreed upon.

[jc101]

Well, if Renesas use Altium internally it's certainly one way to manage the annual subscription price hike and paywalling of features to only higher subscription levels.  Even those with permanent licences have features paywalled by an active subscription these days.

With recent licence changes, they may well be buying just as many users look elsewhere...

[nctnico]

I'm not sure how Altium can compete with Kicad within a few years. Looking forward: Kicad version 8 or 9 can do everything a small business needs for PCB design & the logistics side of assembling boards.

[jc101]

From the press release...

“Development processes continue to evolve and accelerate. With our Purpose “To Make Our Lives Easier” in mind, our vision is to make electronics design accessible to the broader market to allow more innovation through a cloud-based platform,” said Hidetoshi Shibata, CEO of Renesas. “Addition of Altium will enable us to deliver an integrated and open development platform, making it easier for businesses of all sizes and industries to build and scale their systems. We look forward to working with Altium’s talented team as we continue to invest and drive our combined platform to the next level of value for our customers."

Looks very cloudy going forwards 

[tom66]

I'm not sure how Altium can compete with Kicad within a few years. Looking forward: Kicad version 8 or 9 can do everything a small business needs for PCB design & the logistics side of assembling boards.

Agreed.  And I use Altium professionally at the day-job.  There are some things like complex microvia stackups or flexis (especially flexi rigids) where Altium still wins.  Also, the integration with the mechanical CAD side is a little better.  But generally:  KiCAD is *very, very* good.   Also, it is far more stable.  Altium tends to crash, even in the latest versions, and has a lot of performance issues even on good hardware.  For instance, it takes a good 30 seconds here to open up a PCB from the repository, but KiCAD can have one open in just over a second. 

It is not hard to see how it could be a serious thorn in the side of their salespeople soon enough.

[tszaboo]

I'm not sure how Altium can compete with Kicad within a few years. Looking forward: Kicad version 8 or 9 can do everything a small business needs for PCB design & the logistics side of assembling boards.

Agreed.  And I use Altium professionally at the day-job.  There are some things like complex microvia stackups or flexis (especially flexi rigids) where Altium still wins.  Also, the integration with the mechanical CAD side is a little better.  But generally:  KiCAD is *very, very* good.   Also, it is far more stable.  Altium tends to crash, even in the latest versions, and has a lot of performance issues even on good hardware.  For instance, it takes a good 30 seconds here to open up a PCB from the repository, but KiCAD can have one open in just over a second. 

It is not hard to see how it could be a serious thorn in the side of their salespeople soon enough.

How about the online component library, and access to octopart stuff. Integration with AutoCAD. Automated release. Documentation support like the draftsman.
The software is not about pushing lines so they don't cross, software in the 80s could do that, and that's not actually where we spend most of our time.

[tom66]

How about the online component library, and access to octopart stuff. Integration with AutoCAD. Automated release. Documentation support like the draftsman.
The software is not about pushing lines so they don't cross, software in the 80s could do that, and that's not actually where we spend most of our time.

We don't use the online components library.  How can you be sure of its provenance when you are making expensive one offs on short timescales? We sometimes spend £15k on short-turn board runs to get projects out to customers in time.   So we draw all of our own footprints.  The only external CAD we use are 3D STEP models from component manufacturers.

We do like the CAD integration, though use it with Solidworks.  It's definitely very good, that's why I highlighted it as an area KiCAD currently lacks in.  Especially when it comes to building flexis,  you can flex the PCB in Altium and define bend points and bend radiuses, and integrate these into the product.

Don't think we've used the other two features intensively.  All of our production panelisation is done by a 3rd party company - we send them one-off gerbers and they send us panel CAD back for approval.

Basically I broadly agree with nctnico, it's not quite there yet, but in another 2..3..5 years?  KiCAD will be able to do almost everything Altium can does and instead of costing £10k per seat it'll cost nothing.  It's going to take a lot of missing functionality to convince companies that the £10k is worth spending IMO.  The performance issues with Altium are a major headache.  We find it is slow even on a 5800H laptops with dedicated GPUs.  Meanwhile KiCAD runs lightning fast. 

[nctnico]

And Altium is also lagging behind with high speed board verification. One of my customers had a complex board design with SoC, high speed memory etc designed using Altium but I verified the high speed stuff (impedances, crosstalk) by importing the design into Allegro. Also the initial board stackup and differential pairs where setup using Allegro's field solver as Altium's results (which likely use formulas) for the differential pairs where way off.

The speed of Altium is lauhgable indeed. Allegro runs way faster on a 10 year old, Intel i3 laptop compared to Altium on a modern PC.

[EEVblog]

I was this close to buying shares at 10 cents 

I should have mined 1000 Bitcoins... I should not have sold them when they where worth €10 each... I should not have sold them when they where worth €100 each... I should not have sold them when they where worth €1000 each... I should not have sold them when they where worth €10000 each... The list goes on... 

Yep, I probably would have bailed once it was a 10-20 bagger.

[DrGeoff]

I was this close to buying shares at 10 cents 

I should have mined 1000 Bitcoins... I should not have sold them when they where worth €10 each... I should not have sold them when they where worth €100 each... I should not have sold them when they where worth €1000 each... I should not have sold them when they where worth €10000 each... The list goes on... 

Yep, I probably would have bailed once it was a 10-20 bagger.

Lol. I got them at 37 cents. Still have a big bundle stewing away...

[EEVblog]

Lol. I got them at 37 cents. Still have a big bundle stewing away...

185 bagger 

I was going to put my entire payout of $20k into Altium at around I think it was 10 cents. If I held 15 years until now they would be worth $13.7M  :'(

[tooki]

Also the initial board stackup and differential pairs where setup using Allegro's field solver as Altium's results (which likely use formulas) for the differential pairs where way off.

Altium uses a field solver.

And I don’t see how KiCad will displace Altium until it fills in the gaps on very basic missing features, like the ability to edit more than a single object at a time. (The current workaround of batch-editing files in a text editor is laughable.) KiCad is impressive in many ways, and you can absolutely produce top-quality output with it, but Altium supports you far more in doing so.

[SiliconWizard]

Also the initial board stackup and differential pairs where setup using Allegro's field solver as Altium's results (which likely use formulas) for the differential pairs where way off.

Altium uses a field solver.

And I don’t see how KiCad will displace Altium until it fills in the gaps on very basic missing features, like the ability to edit more than a single object at a time. (The current workaround of batch-editing files in a text editor is laughable.) KiCad is impressive in many ways, and you can absolutely produce top-quality output with it, but Altium supports you far more in doing so.

Agreed. This would be very far-fetched.

And, as for how the real world works, beyond purely technical abilities, just look at how many people still use Eagle, even when KiCad would definitely be a good fit there, and even if Eagle can be considered essentially dead and what's left of it is subscription-crap only. So, yeah. Displacing AD? Uh-huh. In what year?

[ataradov]

I review a lot of random schematics as part of my job, and in the past couple years I've seen KiCad schematics a lot, may be event the most, although I have not counted. There are definitely biases in what is being submitted for review, but the trend is there and KiCad usage in the industry goes up. It will not replace Altium, but it replaces Eagle pretty well.

[hans]

Also the initial board stackup and differential pairs where setup using Allegro's field solver as Altium's results (which likely use formulas) for the differential pairs where way off.

Altium uses a field solver.

And I don’t see how KiCad will displace Altium until it fills in the gaps on very basic missing features, like the ability to edit more than a single object at a time. (The current workaround of batch-editing files in a text editor is laughable.) KiCad is impressive in many ways, and you can absolutely produce top-quality output with it, but Altium supports you far more in doing so.

100% agreed.

I've used Kicad with satisfaction on several occassions, but it were handpicked designs which wouldn't go beyond QFP-100 or so, on small PCBs. The productivity tools just aren't there yet. The GUI's still feel clunky (ever noticed how non-intuitive the footprint picker for a complete SCH looks?), and simply lacking for grouping, selecting, filtering and mass editting tools. "Scripting" is not the solution for this. I shouldn't need to write a script to change the value/footprint of 5 caps "in bulk" in my design.

Now I must admit that KiCad can probably be fixed relatively easy for that, its not doing a whole things wrong per-se, rather it's not doing them yet. In contrast, Altium has grown out to be a beast with half a dozen ways to accomplish the same thing.. or 3 different ways to open the same GUI panels. I also don't like their newer UI design where all the panels fold in the sides and are arranged vertically. Some of the old panels had a great overview and information density.
It's all horrondously complex, and speaking of poor UI design, Altium can also get some rewards!

But.. its all nothing compared to Eagle or whatever it is now called. I started using it in 2010 as an upgrade to Multisim we used in school.. but man, looking back, what a piece of trash that was.

[EEVblog]

I review a lot of random schematics as part of my job, and in the past couple years I've seen KiCad schematics a lot, may be event the most, although I have not counted. There are definitely biases in what is being submitted for review, but the trend is there and KiCad usage in the industry goes up. It will not replace Altium, but it replaces Eagle pretty well.

Eagle seems dead. When was the last time you heard anyone talk about eagle in the hobby/maker community?

[rsjsouza]

The same will happen with Altium if Renesas pulls an Autodesk and kills perpetual in favour of online/subscription.

Just like others, I am still trying to understand the reason for the acquisition. Either compete head-to-head with another EDA (Zuken is also Japanese and might have upset Renesas in some unknown fashion) or kill the product altogether to favour Zuken.

[tom66]

I review a lot of random schematics as part of my job, and in the past couple years I've seen KiCad schematics a lot, may be event the most, although I have not counted. There are definitely biases in what is being submitted for review, but the trend is there and KiCad usage in the industry goes up. It will not replace Altium, but it replaces Eagle pretty well.

Eagle seems dead. When was the last time you heard anyone talk about eagle in the hobby/maker community?

I believe SparkFun still predominantly use Eagle.  I feel sorry for their CAD engineers. 

Aside from those guys, yeah... I don't get Eagle at all.  Still. Could be worse.  Could be Mentor PADS... I had to use that for the last 3 years.  I don't think you could deliberately make software that bad if you tried.

[tooki]

Adafruit’s designs are also all Eagle, last time I checked.

[nctnico]

I review a lot of random schematics as part of my job, and in the past couple years I've seen KiCad schematics a lot, may be event the most, although I have not counted. There are definitely biases in what is being submitted for review, but the trend is there and KiCad usage in the industry goes up. It will not replace Altium, but it replaces Eagle pretty well.

Eagle seems dead. When was the last time you heard anyone talk about eagle in the hobby/maker community?

Last week I was in a meeting with somebody who is using Eagle as part of the Autodesk package.

[NF6X]

Still. Could be worse.  Could be Mentor PADS... I had to use that for the last 3 years.  I don't think you could deliberately make software that bad if you tried.

I used PADS for around 14 years, in the pre-Mentor through Mentor era. Around 8 years ago, I switched to using KiCad both at business and work. Late last year, I had to use PADS again briefly to make some modifications to another engineer's design. The only changes I could see were 1) simple 3D viewing was added, and 2) they put masking tape over "Mentor" and wrote "Siemens" on it. It felt so very clunky compared to KiCad, which has grown tremendously since I started using it in the version 4.x era.

I've only had a tiny bit of exposure to Altium. I'd like to see KiCad add some features that Altium has, particularly rigid/flex and multi-board support. I'm satisfied with KiCad's mechanical CAD support, but maybe I would change my mind about that if I tried Altium+Solidworks integration? I haven't had a good opportunity to learn SolidWorks because the MEs at work are usually fighting over the SolidWorks licenses.

The context where I briefly touched Altium is in a defense contractor where we are absolutely forbidden to use any cloud features; we even had to set up a local license server to satisfy the company policy. That limited the Altium features I could use somewhat. It's funny that I was on board with standardizing the company on Altium and I was the guy who managed the purchase and roll-out mid last year... but then I never really learned to use it because 1) constant schedule pressure and I know KiCad so well plus 2) we have only 2 seats of Altium and a lot more than 2 EEs. Well, it made some of the other EEs happy to be able to use Altium, at least.

I'm most comfortable with a KiCad + Fusion 360 environment. I'd like to switch to KiCad + FreeCad at home to get entirely away from the cloud, but I've had a hard time unlearning Fusion 360 enough to grok FreeCad so far.

[notsob]

Same here. Autodesk went out of their way to suck in the customers and then moved the $ goal posts
do you remember when you could buy software something like Coraldraw, that worked online for a single purchase price.
As many are doing, I'm unlearning Fusion 360 and slowly skilling my ability in freecad and Kicad

[tom66]

Still. Could be worse.  Could be Mentor PADS... I had to use that for the last 3 years.  I don't think you could deliberately make software that bad if you tried.

I used PADS for around 14 years, in the pre-Mentor through Mentor era. Around 8 years ago, I switched to using KiCad both at business and work. Late last year, I had to use PADS again briefly to make some modifications to another engineer's design. The only changes I could see were 1) simple 3D viewing was added, and 2) they put masking tape over "Mentor" and wrote "Siemens" on it. It felt so very clunky compared to KiCad, which has grown tremendously since I started using it in the version 4.x era.

PADS genuinely feels like someone wrote software for MS-DOS or Windows 95 and slowly ported it up to the modern day but for some reason they still feel like they can charge £3k for the software.  All of that cruft and crap is left behind, so it still uses Windows GDI to do all of the rendering, which means that big PCBs take a long time to load layers.  Then you have the random errors, like "Application exception, your work if any has been saved to <X>."  Great idea in theory, except, it points to a directory in Program Files where it doesn't have write permissions, so the write obviously fails, but no it doesn't try and put it anywhere else, that's just work gone... So you better get used to Ctrl+S every 5-10 minutes.
 
It's also incredibly slow if you try to put symbols on a network drive because it seems to open and close the database file all the time instead of just downloading the few MB for that file and working from a local copy in RAM.  Because it does open and close the symbols file, it becomes impossible to safely have more than one person editing the database at once, but it doesn't warn you about that.  You will just end up corrupting the database and asking the IT guy if he can restore yesterday's backup.

Oh, and its mechanical integration is crap, which was a major reason for ditching it.

There's also a hilarious bug with multiple monitors where if you detach the menu bar from the active window, it will disappear forever (even between program invocations!) if you do not move the PADS software onto the monitor you first started the program on, force-kill the software and then re-open it on that monitor. That's the kind of bug that existed back in 2005 when people first started using more than one monitor on a PC, it just shouldn't exist these days.

[NF6X]

I am grandfathered in at a $350/year subscription to Fusion 360. I think it's up to at least $500/year now for the standard tier? I do like the tool a lot except for the cloud BS, but it will still be satisfying when I can break free from paying the subscription and do my mechanical CAD work in a FOSS tool. I think FreeCad can probably do most of what I need, but I have not yet reached activation energy to learn how to use it.

[delfinom]

Still. Could be worse.  Could be Mentor PADS... I had to use that for the last 3 years.  I don't think you could deliberately make software that bad if you tried.

I used PADS for around 14 years, in the pre-Mentor through Mentor era. Around 8 years ago, I switched to using KiCad both at business and work. Late last year, I had to use PADS again briefly to make some modifications to another engineer's design. The only changes I could see were 1) simple 3D viewing was added, and 2) they put masking tape over "Mentor" and wrote "Siemens" on it. It felt so very clunky compared to KiCad, which has grown tremendously since I started using it in the version 4.x era.

 All of that cruft and crap is left behind, so it still uses Windows GDI to do all of the rendering,

Funny thing, in MCAD land, Solidworks also uses Windows GDI somehow so heavily that it regularly hits the Windows GDI object limit and tells you about it.

Meanwhile they also have scareware to make you buy high-end workstation GPUs for some reason.

[EEVblog]

Adafruit’s designs are also all Eagle, last time I checked.

I'm surprised given their militant passion for complete open source.

[NF6X]

I hope you'll make an EEVblab about this one before long. But maybe you need to learn more details before you have much to say?

[EEVblog]

I hope you'll make an EEVblab about this one before long. But maybe you need to learn more details before you have much to say?

Chris an I are recording a special Amp Hour about it on Monday.

[pointhi]

Also the initial board stackup and differential pairs where setup using Allegro's field solver as Altium's results (which likely use formulas) for the differential pairs where way off.

Altium uses a field solver.

And I don’t see how KiCad will displace Altium until it fills in the gaps on very basic missing features, like the ability to edit more than a single object at a time. (The current workaround of batch-editing files in a text editor is laughable.) KiCad is impressive in many ways, and you can absolutely produce top-quality output with it, but Altium supports you far more in doing so.

100% agreed.

I've used Kicad with satisfaction on several occassions, but it were handpicked designs which wouldn't go beyond QFP-100 or so, on small PCBs. The productivity tools just aren't there yet. The GUI's still feel clunky (ever noticed how non-intuitive the footprint picker for a complete SCH looks?), and simply lacking for grouping, selecting, filtering and mass editting tools. "Scripting" is not the solution for this. I shouldn't need to write a script to change the value/footprint of 5 caps "in bulk" in my design.

Now I must admit that KiCad can probably be fixed relatively easy for that, its not doing a whole things wrong per-se, rather it's not doing them yet. In contrast, Altium has grown out to be a beast with half a dozen ways to accomplish the same thing.. or 3 different ways to open the same GUI panels. I also don't like their newer UI design where all the panels fold in the sides and are arranged vertically. Some of the old panels had a great overview and information density.
It's all horrondously complex, and speaking of poor UI design, Altium can also get some rewards!

But.. its all nothing compared to Eagle or whatever it is now called. I started using it in 2010 as an upgrade to Multisim we used in school.. but man, looking back, what a piece of trash that was.

I suggest to look at the KiCad 8 release candidate. For example, the property panel was added to the remaining tools which allow bulk editing. However, there are already bulk editing tools for schematic symbols in KiCad 7 which work across sheets so scripting shouldn't be neccessary there. There are also improvements for selection and filtering but it is always hard to tell from a single post what use-cases you have exactly and where they are not met yet.

[tooki]

Adafruit’s designs are also all Eagle, last time I checked.

I'm surprised given their militant passion for complete open source.

Yup. On the bright side, everything else seems to be able to import Eagle files competently, so there’s no vendor lock-in in practice.

P.S. I just checked, and even their newest design — initial GitHub upload 3 days ago — is done in Eagle.

[tooki]

I suggest to look at the KiCad 8 release candidate. For example, the property panel was added to the remaining tools which allow bulk editing. However, there are already bulk editing tools for schematic symbols in KiCad 7 which work across sheets so scripting shouldn't be neccessary there. There are also improvements for selection and filtering but it is always hard to tell from a single post what use-cases you have exactly and where they are not met yet.

FYI, real-world examples for me would be things like changing the part number of a resistor or cap used multiple times, to reflect current availability or a design change. Or changing them all to a different footprint (so changing both part number and footprint and metadata).

[NF6X]

FYI, real-world examples for me would be things like changing the part number of a resistor or cap used multiple times, to reflect current availability or a design change. Or changing them all to a different footprint (so changing both part number and footprint and metadata).

Yeah, there's bulk editing for that even in the KiCad 7.x series stable releases.

[tooki]

FYI, real-world examples for me would be things like changing the part number of a resistor or cap used multiple times, to reflect current availability or a design change. Or changing them all to a different footprint (so changing both part number and footprint and metadata).

Yeah, there's bulk editing for that even in the KiCad 7.x series stable releases.

Whatever meager bulk editing is possible in 7.x is well-hidden and only very selectively available. (I just tried. Again. The manual makes mention of a “bulk edit” feature, but that section of the manual hasn’t been written yet.) You can change symbols on multiple items. But there is no facility at all to bulk edit parameters in the schematic editor, and in the PCB editor the properties panel shows only a small handful of an object’s properties. The rest remain hidden behind selecting an individual one and pressing E.

One of the things I think Altium really does right is that, with very, very rare exceptions, any property you can edit on a single item can be edited on multiple items using the identical process, simply by having more than one selected at the time.

KiCad is still light-years away from this. I also can’t stress enough that even if a feature technically is present, if it’s not self-explanatory, it’s functionally nonexistent. For all its complexity, I found learning Altium to be largely self-explanatory. I have not found that to be the case with KiCad.

[nctnico]

FYI, real-world examples for me would be things like changing the part number of a resistor or cap used multiple times, to reflect current availability or a design change. Or changing them all to a different footprint (so changing both part number and footprint and metadata).

Yeah, there's bulk editing for that even in the KiCad 7.x series stable releases.

Whatever meager bulk editing is possible in 7.x is well-hidden and only very selectively available. (I just tried. Again. The manual makes mention of a “bulk edit” feature, but that section of the manual hasn’t been written yet.) You can change symbols on multiple items. But there is no facility at all to bulk edit parameters in the schematic editor, and in the PCB editor the properties panel shows only a small handful of an object’s properties. The rest remain hidden behind selecting an individual one and pressing E.

One of the things I think Altium really does right is that, with very, very rare exceptions, any property you can edit on a single item can be edited on multiple items using the identical process, simply by having more than one selected at the time.

The problem with that approach is that you have very poor control over what you are selecting and whether you are actually sure you have selected all or even too much. I have a board -designed using Altium- on my desk right now where some of the mounting holes have solder mask on them and some not. Likely some holes got a different settings along the way so they don't match the selection criteria and got solder mask added or removed.

Personally I never ever change properties of parts in a schematic and everything is a part (including mounting holes) which comes from a database. So when I change the database, all the parts in the schematic get updated accordingly. The database is leading. This workflow saves a ton of work where it comes to selecting/editing part properties and tracing BOM errors due to parts not being updated. I'm not sure whether Kicad supports this workflow fully already but it is coming. In Altium I've found it hit & miss because it doesn't always seem to update the part properties even though it is told to do a database refresh.

[NF6X]

I don't understand the complaint. In KiCad 7.x schematic editor, you click one button and get a spreadsheet where you can change all of the footprints and metadata for the entire schematic. What am I missing?

Edit: Added a screenshot, with arrow pointing at the button to click for bulk editing.

[tooki]

You’re missing that you still have to edit the values one by one. You can, for example, select three capacitors’ values. But when you type a new value and press enter, it gets applied only to the first one in the selection. The other two remain unchanged. It does look like that dialog will paste the same data into multiple cells using Ctrl+V, so I guess that’s a workaround. But clearly it’s a half-baked feature, and it does not contain all the parameters. If you select a single component and press E, there are way more things to configure than in the table dialog.

[NF6X]

Ah, I see what you mean. I just tried it to understand better: If I edit a field for a collapsed group, it changes the value for the whole group. But then if I expand a group, select a subset of the group, and edit a field, it only changes the first component as you say. Yes, that's a valid criticism.

[tooki]

The problem with that approach is that you have very poor control over what you are selecting and whether you are actually sure you have selected all or even too much. I have a board -designed using Altium- on my desk right now where some of the mounting holes have solder mask on them and some not. Likely some holes got a different settings along the way so they don't match the selection criteria and got solder mask added or removed.

Huh? Altium has extremely good, fine-grained control over selection.

Personally I never ever change properties of parts in a schematic and everything is a part (including mounting holes) which comes from a database. So when I change the database, all the parts in the schematic get updated accordingly. The database is leading. This workflow saves a ton of work where it comes to selecting/editing part properties and tracing BOM errors due to parts not being updated.

I don’t use the database approach, but I do make a library for the project and a library component for each thing.

But not everything can be a component: vias and tracks, for example. And it wouldn’t make sense to make components for, say, one-off silkscreen text.

Regardless, I never said one should always modify everything right in the PCB or schematic editor. But I really, really appreciate that Altium is extremely flexible in allowing batch editing, so that it’s available whenever it’s sensible to use — and I’ll point out that one of the biggest uses I’ve found for it is actually for getting rid of inconsistencies that crept in one way or another.

[mikehoopes]

30-year+ Protel/Altium user here - started with Protel 2, coming from Tango and Orcad just before the latter ported to Windows. I recall the non-optional FPGA IDE effort in the late 2000s; new licenses jumped from $2K to $4K, and I don’t recall anyone asking for that feature, given that the chip producers were all giving away their own IDEs.

I don’t know what the Renesas influence will look like for them. They’re saying the leadership and roadmap are being left intact, but we’ll see. Renesas isn’t really known for maintaining cozy relationships with smaller customers. Meanwhile, I’m not hearing any mention of Orcad X in this thread, which looks like it’s morphing into an Altium-like UX. AD itself in 2018 appeared to be taking cues from Adobe’s aesthetic. New Standard licenses are likely pushing $15K nowadays (with subscription/maintenance fees hovering in the 17-25% range, depending on your baseline) and the shareholders couldn’t be happier.

Altium has added a lot of web-based collab tools in A365, mostly servicing non-designer teammates, excepting MCAD CoDesigner, which isn’t web-based, but primarily executes on their servers. I’d like to see more automation and built-in best practices as the path of least resistance in the basic design toolset. Fabricator EQs should really mostly become a result only of willful deviations on the part of designers.

[Warhawk]

Still. Could be worse.  Could be Mentor PADS... I had to use that for the last 3 years.  I don't think you could deliberately make software that bad if you tried.

I used PADS for around 14 years, in the pre-Mentor through Mentor era. Around 8 years ago, I switched to using KiCad both at business and work. Late last year, I had to use PADS again briefly to make some modifications to another engineer's design. The only changes I could see were 1) simple 3D viewing was added, and 2) they put masking tape over "Mentor" and wrote "Siemens" on it. It felt so very clunky compared to KiCad, which has grown tremendously since I started using it in the version 4.x era.

I've only had a tiny bit of exposure to Altium. I'd like to see KiCad add some features that Altium has, particularly rigid/flex and multi-board support. I'm satisfied with KiCad's mechanical CAD support, but maybe I would change my mind about that if I tried Altium+Solidworks integration? I haven't had a good opportunity to learn SolidWorks because the MEs at work are usually fighting over the SolidWorks licenses.

The context where I briefly touched Altium is in a defense contractor where we are absolutely forbidden to use any cloud features; we even had to set up a local license server to satisfy the company policy. That limited the Altium features I could use somewhat. It's funny that I was on board with standardizing the company on Altium and I was the guy who managed the purchase and roll-out mid last year... but then I never really learned to use it because 1) constant schedule pressure and I know KiCad so well plus 2) we have only 2 seats of Altium and a lot more than 2 EEs. Well, it made some of the other EEs happy to be able to use Altium, at least.

I'm most comfortable with a KiCad + Fusion 360 environment. I'd like to switch to KiCad + FreeCad at home to get entirely away from the cloud, but I've had a hard time unlearning Fusion 360 enough to grok FreeCad so far.

Consider switching to SolidEdge instead of Freecad. The version 2021 SE is still BS free. Perpetual license. Forever. ...

[NF6X]

I don't like Windows, so I probably won't consider SolidEdge. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

[ajawamnet]

I'm not sure how Altium can compete with Kicad within a few years. Looking forward: Kicad version 8 or 9 can do everything a small business needs for PCB design & the logistics side of assembling boards.

And Kicad now has their version of Redhat...  https://www.kipro-pcb.com/about-us/

[ajawamnet]

Maybe all Renesas wants is the 365 portal tech.   

[EEVblog]

Adafruit’s designs are also all Eagle, last time I checked.

I'm surprised given their militant passion for complete open source.

Yup. On the bright side, everything else seems to be able to import Eagle files competently, so there’s no vendor lock-in in practice.
P.S. I just checked, and even their newest design — initial GitHub upload 3 days ago — is done in Eagle.

Is there even a free version of Eagle still available for small boards?

[EEVblog]

30-year+ Protel/Altium user here - started with Protel 2, coming from Tango and Orcad just before the latter ported to Windows. I recall the non-optional FPGA IDE effort in the late 2000s; new licenses jumped from $2K to $4K, and I don’t recall anyone asking for that feature, given that the chip producers were all giving away their own IDEs.

They didn't, it was Nick Martins future vision of electronics design, everything would be FPGA. Hence the entire company shift to focus on FPGA and modual electronics and the infamous making of the PCB tool optional extra, because, well, only advanced users would need to design their own boards. They bet the farm on that concept and lost.

[nctnico]

30-year+ Protel/Altium user here - started with Protel 2, coming from Tango and Orcad just before the latter ported to Windows. I recall the non-optional FPGA IDE effort in the late 2000s; new licenses jumped from $2K to $4K, and I don’t recall anyone asking for that feature, given that the chip producers were all giving away their own IDEs.

They didn't, it was Nick Martins future vision of electronics design, everything would be FPGA. Hence the entire company shift to focus on FPGA and modual electronics and the infamous making of the PCB tool optional extra, because, well, only advanced users would need to design their own boards. They bet the farm on that concept and lost.

No surprise there. How was he planning on getting around the ultra secret & proprietary routing & placing algorithms? Without those, you might be able to setup a fancy HDL editing and simulation system but certainly not an all-in-one development platform like the FPGA vendors typically provide.

[harerod]

Quote from: EEVblog on Today at 22:10:42

...Is there even a free version of Eagle still available for small boards?

Well, any old installation file, up to V7.7, will yield an unlimited viewer AND a limited layout tool (AFAIR 160mm x 100mm, 2 layers).

EAGLE V7 isn't too bad, below a certain project size. It surely beats ink and paper.

[tszaboo]

30-year+ Protel/Altium user here - started with Protel 2, coming from Tango and Orcad just before the latter ported to Windows. I recall the non-optional FPGA IDE effort in the late 2000s; new licenses jumped from $2K to $4K, and I don’t recall anyone asking for that feature, given that the chip producers were all giving away their own IDEs.

They didn't, it was Nick Martins future vision of electronics design, everything would be FPGA. Hence the entire company shift to focus on FPGA and modual electronics and the infamous making of the PCB tool optional extra, because, well, only advanced users would need to design their own boards. They bet the farm on that concept and lost.

I heard the story before, but it still amazes me, the stupidity of that concept. The typical reaction of every experienced engineer to FPGAs is either:
A) That they are to expensive, power hungry, and if you can really prove me that there is no chance to do the project without it, then I'll place one on the board
B) I get to play with toys, and get to spend as much time mucking around with things as I want, since nobody will understand what I'm actually doing.

[NF6X]

FPGAs are quite useful. But even if they were the right tool for every job (they aren't!), the thought that nobody would need to design their own PCBs when using them is absurd. There's a world of difference between a development board vs. a finished product.

[ejeffrey]

30-year+ Protel/Altium user here - started with Protel 2, coming from Tango and Orcad just before the latter ported to Windows. I recall the non-optional FPGA IDE effort in the late 2000s; new licenses jumped from $2K to $4K, and I don’t recall anyone asking for that feature, given that the chip producers were all giving away their own IDEs.

They didn't, it was Nick Martins future vision of electronics design, everything would be FPGA. Hence the entire company shift to focus on FPGA and modual electronics and the infamous making of the PCB tool optional extra, because, well, only advanced users would need to design their own boards. They bet the farm on that concept and lost.

No surprise there. How was he planning on getting around the ultra secret & proprietary routing & placing algorithms? Without those, you might be able to setup a fancy HDL editing and simulation system but certainly not an all-in-one development platform like the FPGA vendors typically provide.

I don't want to pretend I understand, but I imagine it would still use the vendor synthesis and place and route tools.  Think like Arduino for FPGAs which has its own libraries, bootloader, and module API but in the end just calls the gcc toolchain.  You have your high level development environment and you tell it which modules you have snapped together and it creates instantiation templates, builds initializationogic, and distributes the resulting binaries to the right targets.

It's not a bad idea. Pynq kind of works like this, and it's probably something we could use more and better tools for.  It's just not a replacement for or obsoleting of PCB CAD tools.

[Someone]

FPGAs are quite useful. But even if they were the right tool for every job (they aren't!), the thought that nobody would need to design their own PCBs when using them is absurd. There's a world of difference between a development board vs. a finished product.

The PCB license was the most expensive, as the number of hardware users is usually much smaller than the FPGA/software users. The code and FPGA schematic integration was a nifty system and well ahead of its time, but far too expensive for the benefits.

[NF6X]

Did they literally think that PCB design was going to become obsolete, or just that they would sell a lot more FPGA design licenses than PCB layout licenses? I thought that Dave had previously stated that it was the former, but I might misremember that.

[Bud]

I'm not sure how Altium can compete with Kicad within a few years. Looking forward: Kicad version 8 or 9 can do everything a small business needs for PCB design & the logistics side of assembling boards.

And Kicad now has their version of Redhat...  https://www.kipro-pcb.com/about-us/

Kicad taking over Altium is talking nonsense, because no sane big company would use a tool which is core to their business without contractual support. Now, this is why what they say in the above link makes sense and should be Kicad's team strategic offering and bread and butter. However, if that happens and becomes a success, sure thing it will end up someone making them an offer and the guys cashing the tool out for their retirement tickets and the world will be back to square one.

[SiliconWizard]

To be fair, KiCad does offer contractual support I think, if you pay for it. But one issue is that KiCad is still a very small structure. And the budget of the dev team is absolutely ridiculous compared to Altium. Thing is, if one day they become as big as Altium, I'm afraid we may not like as much the direction it will take. (Mozilla, anyone?)

Feature-wise, KiCad is still a long way from AD, and I'm saying that while using it almost exclusively now, but it wouldn't fit all environments. I certainly now recommend it for small to medium companies that are starting and don't have legacy designs to support.

[Karel]

Kicad taking over Altium is talking nonsense, because no sane big company would use a tool which is core to their business without contractual support.

KiCad does offer contractual support:

https://www.kicad.org/help/professional-support/

https://www.kipro-pcb.com/

[tszaboo]

Kicad taking over Altium is talking nonsense, because no sane big company would use a tool which is core to their business without contractual support. Now, this is why what they say in the above link makes sense and should be Kicad's team strategic offering and bread and butter. However, if that happens and becomes a success, sure thing it will end up someone making them an offer and the guys cashing the tool out for their retirement tickets and the world will be back to square one.

Or rather, there are a lot of engineers that have 10K hours of experience in AD, and they have built up libraries to use, that also takes a lot of time. Who is going to pay for all the engineers to gain the same experience? Let's say it only takes 1000 hour to be able to use KiCAD almost as effectively, just multiply it with your wage.
Include opportunity cost.
Include prototypes that have to be scrapped because you used a new software and made a mistake.

[harerod]

...Or rather, there are a lot of engineers that have 10K hours of experience in AD, and they have built up libraries to use, that also takes a lot of time. Who is going to pay for all the engineers to gain the same experience? Let's say it only takes 1000 hour to be able to use KiCAD almost as effectively, just multiply it with your wage.
Include opportunity cost.
Include prototypes that have to be scrapped because you used a new software and made a mistake.

Thank you for repeating the prime argument, why people stay with their tools and why any mission critical tool should not be dependent on anything cloud- or subscription-based, e.g. corruptable by outside interference. 
And no, I am not exactly proud about still being stuck with EAGLE V7 in 2024. Its only merit is that it does the job for my small fry projects.

[delfinom]

I'm not sure how Altium can compete with Kicad within a few years. Looking forward: Kicad version 8 or 9 can do everything a small business needs for PCB design & the logistics side of assembling boards.

And Kicad now has their version of Redhat...  https://www.kipro-pcb.com/about-us/

Kicad taking over Altium is talking nonsense, because no sane big company would use a tool which is core to their business without contractual support. Now, this is why what they say in the above link makes sense and should be Kicad's team strategic offering and bread and butter. However, if that happens and becomes a success, sure thing it will end up someone making them an offer and the guys cashing the tool out for their retirement tickets and the world will be back to square one.

KiCad is poison-pilled. Not only is it GPLed, the name is held as a trademark by The Linux Foundation

[NF6X]

At $DayJob, our Altium rep is trying to get us to buy a perpetual license. I get the impression that he may be motivated less by our interests and more by his commission?

[Jamieson]

Yeah, the push to deeply integrate FPGA tools into Altium didn't make any sense to me either. I don't want to use Altium to write and simulate my firmware designs. I've got better tools for that.

It is nice to be able to define equivalent pin groups in Altium, so I can swap GPIO pins when routing to make layout cleaner. I think that is handled well within Altium, if you spend the time to set it up. Then as you approach the FPGA footprint in manual route mode the other equivalent pins start to glow. However, propagating the pin swap changes back the FPGA tool constraints file still seems like a manual process.

[jc101]

These days a perpetual licence is limited by the subscription level too.  Quite a few people with a permanent licence, who have been in Standard subscription and finding features vanishing when updates come out.  Specifically multi-board support, now part of the Pro subscription, has been removed from those who had it before.  Plus, if you don't continue the subscription, don't expect the features you had at the time will continue to work.  They want the revenue stream, users be dammed.

Quite a stink brewing on the Altium forum about that.

[NF6X]

Or rather, there are a lot of engineers that have 10K hours of experience in AD, and they have built up libraries to use, that also takes a lot of time. Who is going to pay for all the engineers to gain the same experience? Let's say it only takes 1000 hour to be able to use KiCAD almost as effectively, just multiply it with your wage.
Include opportunity cost.
Include prototypes that have to be scrapped because you used a new software and made a mistake.

Yes, I agree. That's a good reason to stick with any working tool unless there's a very compelling reason to change. I don't see established Altium users switching over to KiCad (or any other competitor) in the short term at any significant rate, unless Renasas really screws things up. I do expect to see KiCad's market share in small shops slowly increasing over time, as KiCad continues to improve and more new engineers come online without a large investment into any specific tool. Of course, Renesas would be wise to encourage college students to use Altium Designer so they start their careers with an affinity towards using it.

These days a perpetual licence is limited by the subscription level too.  Quite a few people with a permanent licence, who have been in Standard subscription and finding features vanishing when updates come out.  Specifically multi-board support, now part of the Pro subscription, has been removed from those who had it before.  Plus, if you don't continue the subscription, don't expect the features you had at the time will continue to work.  They want the revenue stream, users be dammed.

Quite a stink brewing on the Altium forum about that.

When we made our initial purchase of 2 seats of Altium last year, my boss opted against us going for the perpetual license. Not only was it poison-pilled as you describe, but we didn't want to dump that much cash up front. It seemed that their cost structure was geared towards encouraging subscription licenses over perpetual licenses in order to give Altium a steady cash flow. So, I've been a bit surprised at our sales rep pushing perpetual licenses. I get the impression that he's more interested in his commission/bonus than our best interests.

The Renesas purchase announcement doesn't affect my personal decision to continue using KiCad, unless I hit a roadblock where I really need an AD feature that KiCad doesn't support well to complete a project, I take on a consulting client who demands their design to be done in Altium, etc. But I find it interesting to talk about even as a mostly non-Altium user.

[nctnico]

Or rather, there are a lot of engineers that have 10K hours of experience in AD, and they have built up libraries to use, that also takes a lot of time. Who is going to pay for all the engineers to gain the same experience? Let's say it only takes 1000 hour to be able to use KiCAD almost as effectively, just multiply it with your wage.
Include opportunity cost.
Include prototypes that have to be scrapped because you used a new software and made a mistake.

Yes, I agree. That's a good reason to stick with any working tool unless there's a very compelling reason to change.

Licensing costs can be a good reason to change. It is not unheard of that entire companies switch from one CAD to the other despite going through a learning curve. And realistically, a decent engineer should become productive within 100 hours and proficient within 300 hours of use (and these hours aren't wasted as designs will be made). If somebody needs 1000 hours to learn how to be productive with a piece of software, it is time for that person to switch careers. Also as an engineer you need to think about what that $10k Altium license your boss buys for you could do for you as part of a raise in salary.

[Ice-Tea]

These days a perpetual licence is limited by the subscription level too.  Quite a few people with a permanent licence, who have been in Standard subscription and finding features vanishing when updates come out.  Specifically multi-board support, now part of the Pro subscription, has been removed from those who had it before.  Plus, if you don't continue the subscription, don't expect the features you had at the time will continue to work.  They want the revenue stream, users be dammed.

Quite a stink brewing on the Altium forum about that.

Last time I checked standard licenses would be locked to a location as well. That's a "fuck no" from me.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I'm not sure how Altium can compete with Kicad within a few years. Looking forward: Kicad version 8 or 9 can do everything a small business needs for PCB design & the logistics side of assembling boards.

And Kicad now has their version of Redhat...  https://www.kipro-pcb.com/about-us/

Kicad taking over Altium is talking nonsense, because no sane big company would use a tool which is core to their business without contractual support.

What is the biggest risk in practice ?
A proprietory tool that the manufacturer may bork in some way at any time (more so if it's subscription based), or an open tool where you are guaranteed to be able to run a specific version for ever, as well as potentially find and fix bugs yourself if necessary?

[NF6X]

I think the argument that big companies would hesitate to use a tool like KiCad without a company behind it has merit. But on the other hand, big companies use FOSS tools like GCC.

[nctnico]

I think the argument that big companies would hesitate to use a tool like KiCad without a company behind it has merit. But on the other hand, big companies use FOSS tools like GCC.

And how about the huge amounts of companies running Linux on their products?

[NF6X]

Good point. Some of them even comply with the license terms! 

[tom66]

Kicad taking over Altium is talking nonsense, because no sane big company would use a tool which is core to their business without contractual support. Now, this is why what they say in the above link makes sense and should be Kicad's team strategic offering and bread and butter. However, if that happens and becomes a success, sure thing it will end up someone making them an offer and the guys cashing the tool out for their retirement tickets and the world will be back to square one.

Or rather, there are a lot of engineers that have 10K hours of experience in AD, and they have built up libraries to use, that also takes a lot of time. Who is going to pay for all the engineers to gain the same experience? Let's say it only takes 1000 hour to be able to use KiCAD almost as effectively, just multiply it with your wage.
Include opportunity cost.
Include prototypes that have to be scrapped because you used a new software and made a mistake.

Libraries are one thing, but KiCAD already allows import of third party libraries (though the process isn't super smooth, it can be scripted - probably an area to improve upon.)

But the idea that you are throwing 1000 hours at learning KiCAD?  No, I don't believe so.  Most of that effort is getting experienced with a generic PCB layout process, you can apply that to most tools.  KiCAD isn't that different to Altium in its basic operations which is what 90% of your time with the tool is spent doing.

Also, if Altium costs ~$10k to license, plus whatever annual maintenance costs there are, then there is a huge opportunity cost on that licensing fee that a megacorp could save on.  Even if it means sending engineers away for a refresher course on Altium.  We pay our PCB contractor ~$70 USD per hour (GB wages), so such a course would need to take more than 4 weeks to break even (perhaps even more so for an in-house employee.)

A major reason we're not using KiCAD yet is most of our layout work is contracted out and it's hard to find KiCAD PCB engineers.  For us it's too infrequent to justify hiring a full time engineer for PCBs, but a bit too specialised to have that skill in enough in-house engineers.    But as the popularity of the tool grows I imagine this will be less of an issue.

Edit: typo

[NF6X]

Well, I'm planning to cut the cord at my day job sometime this year and become an independent consultant, so there will be one more KiCad PCB engineer available soon. But my rate will be quite a bit higher than the rate you mentioned, because I'll be putting myself out there as a very senior one-stop-shopping EE consultant.

[EEVblog]

Kicad taking over Altium is talking nonsense, because no sane big company would use a tool which is core to their business without contractual support.

That is why the KiCAD Services Corporation was formed.
https://www.kipro-pcb.com/

[NF6X]

Do we know anything about how much business they have received? Have any companies publicized working with them?

[EEVblog]

Kicad taking over Altium is talking nonsense, because no sane big company would use a tool which is core to their business without contractual support.

What is the biggest risk in practice ?

The risk is the manager who approved it gets their arse kicked if something goes wrong and delays the project, there is no one to shout at and blame.
So you end up with standard corporate arse covering rules.

[NF6X]

Good old "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM".

[EEVblog]

Do we know anything about how much business they have received? Have any companies publicized working with them?

I would assume that's confidential information. They even have an NDA service option.

[NF6X]

Do we know anything about how much business they have received? Have any companies publicized working with them?

I would assume that's confidential information. They even have an NDA service option.

Yeah, that makes sense. I was just hoping there was some knowledge about how much traction they have gotten.

[EEVblog]

Do we know anything about how much business they have received? Have any companies publicized working with them?

I would assume that's confidential information. They even have an NDA service option.

Yeah, that makes sense. I was just hoping there was some knowledge about how much traction they have gotten.

It wouldn't hurt them to put "Used by over 20 major tech companies" or some such broad marketing.
Altium plaster their marketing with key customer logos. They might do a special deal in exchange for the use of the name and logo.

[NF6X]

Once I make my new consulting company public, they can post my logo in exchange for a 25% discount on my KiCad license fees.

[SiliconWizard]

 

[EEVblog]

Once I make my new consulting company public, they can post my logo in exchange for a 25% discount on my KiCad license fees.

Only $300/year for you!

[Smokey]

I wonder what "support" actually gets you.

Like if you find a bug, do you get priority to get that bug fixed?
Do you get priority for a feature request?

[Bud]

There typically several levels of support offered, details are agreed on and written in contracts.

[EEVblog]

I wonder what "support" actually gets you.

Like if you find a bug, do you get priority to get that bug fixed?
Do you get priority for a feature request?

Support Subscription Benefits
First class technical and training support.
Private Technical Support – We help you resolve issues quickly.  As a KiPro subscriber, you have direct access to KiCad developers and support specialists.  Contact us by e-mail, online chat or schedule a call.
Custom Builds – We get you early access to new releases, rapid bug fixes and requested features in binaries that are tailored to your installation.
Guaranteed Bug Fixes – When you report a problem, we don’t close your ticket until you are satisfied with the solution.
Remote Desktop Training – Get access to professional KiCad designers and engineers, right at your desktop.  We can help you achieve your KiCad goals more quickly.
Always open software
With KiPro support, you are creating your IP on a platform that belongs to you.  Even if you no longer use KiPro, you can still use the KiCad suite to open, edit and update designs, with no license hassles.  Ever.

Support where you need it.
Whether you need a bug fixed or help with using a feature, KiPro is here to ensure your success.  We are a one-stop for usage support, bug fixes and feature requests that reflect your needs.

[EEVblog]

There typically several levels of support offered, details are agreed on and written in contracts.

Yes, pay them enough money and I'm sure they even come on site and personally fix your problem.

[delfinom]

Do we know anything about how much business they have received? Have any companies publicized working with them?

I would assume that's confidential information. They even have an NDA service option.

Yeah, that makes sense. I was just hoping there was some knowledge about how much traction they have gotten.

From the look at some lower quantity fabs:

https://twitter.com/AislerHQ/status/1749865111999697000 (Funny EAGLE is still hanging in there but Aisler being German and Germany being the original home of EAGLE is probably a contributor).
https://twitter.com/AislerHQ/status/1749875138756022714

https://twitter.com/oshpark/status/1749531515103666670


But yea commercial customers have no reason to brag or share their usage details


I can say since I'm not involved with KiPro, there's at least one US defense contractor using it and one big multinational defense contractor in at least one department haha.

[NF6X]

I can say since I'm not involved with KiPro, there's at least one US defense contractor using it and one big multinational defense contractor in at least one department haha.

Just between you and me, add at least one more US defense contractor using KiCad (also Altium, also PADS, and still building contracts that were originally laid out on a light table).

[tszaboo]

I wonder what "support" actually gets you.

Like if you find a bug, do you get priority to get that bug fixed?
Do you get priority for a feature request?

They answer questions quite quick. I had engineers send me videos specifically recorded for me explaining a feature or workaround in 2-3 minutes. Often times it's not even because of Altium, but some windows update broke a feature, so they point it out exactly what to do. They resolved all my questions in the past, except: Support for layer stackup for 1 layer boards or metal core PCBs

But the idea that you are throwing 1000 hours at learning KiCAD?  No, I don't believe so.  Most of that effort is getting experienced with a generic PCB layout process, you can apply that to most tools.  KiCAD isn't that different to Altium in its basic operations which is what 90% of your time with the tool is spent doing.

Also, if Altium costs ~$10k to license, plus whatever annual maintenance costs there are, then there is a huge opportunity cost on that licensing fee that a megacorp could save on.  Even if it means sending engineers away for a refresher course on Altium.  We pay our PCB contractor ~$70 USD per hour (GB wages), so such a course would need to take more than 4 weeks to break even (perhaps even more so for an in-house employee.)

A major reason we're not using KiCAD yet is most of our layout work is contracted out and it's hard to find KiCAD PCB engineers.  For us it's too infrequent to justify hiring a full time engineer for PCBs, but a bit too specialised to have that skill in enough in-house engineers.    But as the popularity of the tool grows I imagine this will be less of an issue.

Edit: typo

Right now you would need to do that every time a new engineer starts. Plus you can easily operate an engineering team especially larger ones without having a seat bought for everyone.

Licensing costs can be a good reason to change. It is not unheard of that entire companies switch from one CAD to the other despite going through a learning curve. And realistically, a decent engineer should become productive within 100 hours and proficient within 300 hours of use (and these hours aren't wasted as designs will be made). If somebody needs 1000 hours to learn how to be productive with a piece of software, it is time for that person to switch careers. Also as an engineer you need to think about what that $10k Altium license your boss buys for you could do for you as part of a raise in salary.

Sure, but every time I tried another CAD tool, let it be Eagle, Orcad or even circuit studio, I decided that I would rather stick a fork into my eye than to continue using that tool. It was serious tries, because the company already had license bought, before switching to Altium. Didn't give KiCAD  a serious try yet, I'm not sure I have the time, I rather focus on getting my job done than the software.

[Black Phoenix]

Sure, but every time I tried another CAD tool, let it be Eagle, Orcad or even circuit studio, I decided that I would rather stick a fork into my eye than to continue using that tool. It was serious tries, because the company already had license bought, before switching to Altium. Didn't give KiCAD  a serious try yet, I'm not sure I have the time, I rather focus on getting my job done than the software.

Isn't that common with any kind of software or field?

I'm proficient at Windows because of my background but to be able to learn Linux it took a lot of time (and still today I'm learning new stuff) and it will be a very big while until I get the same level of proficiency as I have with Windows.

Same happens with Adobe Photoshop and Gimp. I've been trying to learn Gimp and heck I quit so many times because it simply I am better at Photoshop and what takes me minutes in Photoshop would take me half an hour in Gimp because I don't know my way around it.

Same as SOLIDWORKS and now trying to migrate to Solid Edge. Although kinda similar I'm still some times frustrated while working with it.

Specially if money is on the line, and speed and effectivebess is needed you go to the tool you are familiar with.

Same reason why big companies as Altium, Adobe, Cadence, Siemens, Dassault and so on have student licences and accords with universities for their students to use their tools, making such users reluctant to later change platforms, forcing companies to have to use the same tools if they want to extract the max productivity of their hired talent.

It takes a lot of self indulgence and persistence of the person to take such a step, and some simply can't for other reasons outside of their own objective of improving.

[nctnico]

Sure, but every time I tried another CAD tool, let it be Eagle, Orcad or even circuit studio, I decided that I would rather stick a fork into my eye than to continue using that tool. It was serious tries, because the company already had license bought, before switching to Altium. Didn't give KiCAD  a serious try yet, I'm not sure I have the time, I rather focus on getting my job done than the software.

Isn't that common with any kind of software or field?

I'm proficient at Windows because of my background but to be able to learn Linux it took a lot of time (and still today I'm learning new stuff) and it will be a very big while until I get the same level of proficiency as I have with Windows.

Same happens with Adobe Photoshop and Gimp. I've been trying to learn Gimp and heck I quit so many times because it simply I am better at Photoshop and what takes me minutes in Photoshop would take me half an hour in Gimp because I don't know my way around it.

Same as SOLIDWORKS and now trying to migrate to Solid Edge. Although kinda similar I'm still some times frustrated while working with it.

Specially if money is on the line, and speed and effectivebess is needed you go to the tool you are familiar with.

That is relative. A couple of years ago I had to switch to Orcad Allegro for PCB design as their other tool (Orcad Layout) was no longer supported and ran out of steam for the complexity of the designs I'm working on. Yes, it took quite a bit of time to get familiar with Allegro and there are fundamental differences between the tools but nowadays I'm more productive with Allegro as Orcad Layout. And because Allegro has much more functionality, I can make complex boards quicker as a lot of things are automated. In the end it is just a matter of going through the learning curve.

[EEVblog]

Same reason why big companies as Altium, Adobe, Cadence, Siemens, Dassault and so on have student licences and accords with universities for their students to use their tools, making such users reluctant to later change platforms, forcing companies to have to use the same tools if they want to extract the max productivity of their hired talent.

This is the only reason why Altium survived all the crazy stuff it did that pissed off almost every customer. Once you know a tool intimately like Altium, you stick with it forever unless other external forces force you to change.

[SiliconWizard]

Yep, that's a very effective marketing strategy.

[M4trix]

Hmm...up to date version is 24.2.2 Build 26. My crystal ball is suggesting me to keep it as a backup. Better safe than sorry. 

[EEVblog]

Chris and I yapping on for an hour about the acquisition:
https://theamphour.com/659-altium-acquired/

[Smokey]

Chris and I yapping on for an hour about the acquisition:
https://theamphour.com/659-altium-acquired/

WTF!  No PCAD love in the history?  
(Altium killed my favorite layout software ...)

[nctnico]

Same reason why big companies as Altium, Adobe, Cadence, Siemens, Dassault and so on have student licences and accords with universities for their students to use their tools, making such users reluctant to later change platforms, forcing companies to have to use the same tools if they want to extract the max productivity of their hired talent.

This is the only reason why Altium survived all the crazy stuff it did that pissed off almost every customer. Once you know a tool intimately like Altium

Another thing that seems to stick with Altium is the idea that it is cheaper compared to the high-end competition. Nowadays Altium is twice as expensive when compared to Orcad though.

[NF6X]

You know what? Protel for Windows was the first PCB layout software I ever used, back in the 90s. Can I count myself as an honorary Altium user after all?

I've never used PCAD, but a classmate of mine who worked as a consultant (he was somewhat older, and was getting a bachelor's degree so he could charge more) was a PCAD user.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Chris and I yapping on for an hour about the acquisition:
https://theamphour.com/659-altium-acquired/

WTF!  No PCAD love in the history?  
(Altium killed my favorite layout software ...)

Killed but still perfectly useable - I still use PCAD2006 every day. Fortunately later Windows versions haven't broken it and it's extremely stable.
I've had it since it was called Accel ( formerly Tango). I did try Altium when they took it over, but quickly started to hate it & told the sales rep I wasn't interested even if it was a free upgrade. I had the limited 6 layer/400 part version, but when they refused to sell me a license for the full version I found a code online, so screw you Altium!
It was a great example of a tool that does just one job really well - the reason I bought it in the first place is that it had clearly been written from scratch using Windows conventions, and not inheriting stuff from old tools that had roots in DOS days.

You can in principle import PCAD to Altium, though it took my customer a couple of days to fix up a complex board with blind vias to be useable in Altium.

[nctnico]

It was a great example of a tool that does just one job really well - the reason I bought it in the first place is that it had clearly been written from scratch using Windows conventions, and not inheriting stuff from old tools that had roots in DOS days.

I'm not sure Windows-isms (or GUI-isms) in general are always a good thing. In my workflow I never place elements which need to be placed accurate using a mouse. I always enter coordinates. As Allegro stems from a typical Unix / AutoCAD workflow, it has a command line. So I can enter 'x 5.423 1.234' to place an element at exactly that location (and continue with the next element when drawing a shape outline for example). In Altium you have to press CTRL-l after which a popup appears in which you can enter coordinates. The latter is rather cumbersome because you have to alternate between keyboard and mouse; it is more work.

[mikeselectricstuff]

It was a great example of a tool that does just one job really well - the reason I bought it in the first place is that it had clearly been written from scratch using Windows conventions, and not inheriting stuff from old tools that had roots in DOS days.

I'm not sure Windows-isms (or GUI-isms) in general are always a good thing.

Maybe not for some specific situations, but for new users, it is always a bad thing when software uses an unconventional approach for no  reason other than some arbitary decision taken years or decades ago before Windows was a thing.
When I first evaluated Accel as it was known then, it was running on Win95, and it was the only package that was sufficiently intuitive that a Windows user  could do useful work after a few hours' experimenting.

[temperance]

They should have buried AD in a very deep hole after they bought PCAD. Instead they continued working on their own garbage. They didn't even look at the code in PCAD which unlike AD does work. Because if they would have, push and shove routing, polygon pours and many other things would not be such a disaster.

If you can’t beat them, buy them.

[GreggD]

Altium stock chart and news stories.
Still trading today.
Some analysts had it rated as a sell.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ALU.AX/

[EEVblog]

Altium stock chart and news stories.
Still trading today.
Some analysts had it rated as a sell.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ALU.AX/

Just a formality really. Shares can be compulsorily acquired once they have bought enough to meet the threshold. The bank that is part of the loan arrangement for Renesas has been buying shares for months.

[Ice-Tea]

Reps still caling me to get back on subscription. Essentially asking me "what it would take". Told her I would never upgrade as long as the standard tier is site locked. Her reaction: "wuh?". When I explained she was rather worried for other folks she already sold the "upgrade" to.

So she's checking with "the technical people".

 

[SiliconWizard]

So what's the next acquistion?
Intel buying Microchip? That would be a good one.

[EEVblog]

So what's the next acquistion?
Intel buying Microchip? That would be a good one.

Intel just spun out Altera 

[NF6X]

So what's the next acquistion?
Intel buying Microchip? That would be a good one.

Intel just spun out Altera 

Oooh, maybe they want to borrow Atmel (via Microchip) next!

[SiliconWizard]

Yes, they're betting all on AI now, for sure that will save both Intel and the planet!
https://www.wired.com/story/intel-ceo-pat-gelsinger-ai-comeback/

[nctnico]

So what's the next acquistion?
Intel buying Microchip? That would be a good one.

Intel just spun out Altera 

I missed that news until now but it is hardly surprising.

[tszaboo]

Reps still caling me to get back on subscription. Essentially asking me "what it would take". Told her I would never upgrade as long as the standard tier is site locked. Her reaction: "wuh?". When I explained she was rather worried for other folks she already sold the "upgrade" to.

So she's checking with "the technical people".

 

Single site sounds like a very outdated model. By reading through the EULA, you cannot use it for working from home, you would need the continental license for it, that's a lot more expensive. Only to be able to use it on the same laptop from home. Altium, change the EULA please, this isn't 2018 anymore.

[Ice-Tea]

Can you imagine? Caving in after the 20th call from a rep, shelling out for the subscription renewal, comming home; opening your laptop to get some more work done and... nothing. 

[brumbarchris]

Well, just as a fun fact, the Renesas takeover starts to make itself felt. I have had some very old post on the Altium Forum being revived and answered (asking for more information) by a ...Renesas company representative!

Regards,
Cristian