New in Altium Designer

Altium Designer 20.1

Released: 20 July 2020 - Version 20.1.14 (build 287) Update 5
Released: 29 June 2020 - Version 20.1.12 (build 249) Update 4
Released: 3 June 2020 - Version 20.1.11 (build 218) Update 3
Released: 26 May 2020 - Version 20.1.10 (build 176) Update 2
Released: 14 May 2020 - Version 20.1.8 (build 145) Update 1
Released: 1 May 2020 - Version: 20.1.7 (build 139)

Release Notes for Altium Designer Version 20.1

This latest update to Altium Designer continues to deliver new features and enhancements to the software's core technologies, while also addressing many issues raised by customers through the AltiumLive Community's BugCrunch system. Along with delivering a range of new features that develop and mature the existing technologies, it also incorporates a large number of fixes and enhancements across the software as a whole, helping designers continue to create cutting-edge electronics technology.

This release focuses on the following key areas:

• Bringing the convenience and benefits of the Altium 365 cloud platform to Altium Designer.
• Stability and performance improvements.
• Bug Fixes. We have identified and fixed a significant amount of issues based on your feedback through BugCrunch, Forums and Support Cases.
• Improving functionality that was introduced in 20.0.

Seamless Integration with Altium 365

With Altium Subscription, you can enjoy all the benefits from the connected experience that Altium 365 provides, including:

• Ability to invite other people to work on the same project
• Ability to share a design for a convenient review that can be done through the web browser on virtually any platform.
• Design data storage in the cloud allowing you to work from anywhere with access to the latest version. In addition, native version control is also included.
• Cloud libraries
• Release archive

To use the new features in full, you will need to activate the Workspace for your organization. Within Altium Designer, go to the connection menu at the top right corner.

In addition you can seamlessly upgrade your experience with Altium 365 by purchasing Altium Concord Pro, and opting to have it hosted on the Altium 365 platform. This gives you the ultimate Altium 365 experience with additional services, features and functionality, including:

• Lifecycles (key aspect of the formal component management)
• Components state validation during design, search and release
• Component Templates
• Roles support
• Operation Permissions
• Part Requests
• Component Sync (PLM, ODBC and CSV)

Stability Improvements

• Fixed several crashes, lockups and slowdowns based on user feedback, including the top ten submitted crash reports.
• Development was also focused on prevention of new crashes in Altium Designer 20.1

BugCrunch Fixes and Improvements

This update fixed over 50 reports on BugCrunch\Ideas such as:

• A KiCAD Importer has been added to Altium Designer (BC:6199).
• Added dimensioning to the centers of arc segments and quadrants of circles (BC:12012).
• Added options for selecting the type of output files in ODB++ Setup (BC:8262).
• Added ability to select specific layers when exporting to AutoCAD (BC:6287).
• Server-side Schematic sheet templates are now available in Draftsman (BC:6630).
• Added ability to alter the Symbol Size of selected symbols within Draftsman’s Drill Symbol Configurations dialog (BC:11304).

Additional Improvements

• Improvements to ODB++ support - including the addition of options to specify units of measurement and the ability to now choose output type (no compression, or output to Zip or Tgz archive).
• Fixes and improvements to the Layer Stack Manager - including the ability to calculate impedance profiles in the Layer Stack Manager when in multi-thread mode.
• Fixes and improvements to Draftsman - including support for variants in the Board Realistic view, the ability to use Schematic Sheet Templates within Draftsman documents, support for multi-selection when dragging a vertex, and the ability to snap dimensions to component references.
• Improved experience when starting Altium Designer for the first time after installation including automatic log-in to AltiumLive (based on the credentials entered during installation) and choice of appropriate license - enabling you to get up and running in a more streamlined and time-efficient manner.

► See the New Features and Updates Summary for more information.