Keysight Licenses Simulation Software Technology to Altium for PCB Design Solutions

By: Keysight Technologies, Inc. via Business Wire

November 14, 2022 at 11:00 AM EST

Partnership addresses the needs of hardware engineers facing reliable power distribution problems during printed circuit board (PCB) design and layout
Electromagnetic (EM) simulation technology license is the foundation needed to empower PCB designers to find and fix problems before first prototype, shortening time to market and saving cost of multiple PCB re-spins
First Altium offering, Power Analyzer, is an interactive simulation product enabling visual analysis of power distribution networks in the PCB layout environment

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: KEYS), a leading technology company that delivers advanced design and validation solutions to help accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world, announced that Altium LLC (ASX:ALU) recently licensed Keysight’s advanced electromagnetic simulation technology to develop power analysis solutions for PCB designers. Keysight and Altium are partnering to address the needs of hardware engineers who are not power integrity experts.

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Power Analyzer integrates Keysight’s electromagnetic (EM) simulation technology to support an interactive analyze-modify-analyze methodology in the Altium Designer PCB layout environment. (Photo: Business Wire)

Reliable power distribution is a pervasive problem facing PCB designers. As integrated circuit (IC) components trend toward lower supply voltages for increased power efficiency, it becomes difficult to design a PCB power plane within shrinking tolerance limits. Designers typically build several iterations of prototypes or submit their designs to power integrity specialists. Both are sub-optimal approaches that hinder rapid design turnaround. By empowering PCB designers to find and fix problems before first prototype, they can achieve higher productivity, faster time-to-market, and greater predictability in the design process.

Power Analyzer is the first offering to result from the strategic partnership between Altium and Keysight, providing interactive analysis of power integrity issues. Altium integrated Keysight’s EM simulation technology with its modern graphical user interface to make power analysis fast, accurate, and easy to run. PCB designers using Power Analyzer gain insight into their power plane performance through analysis of voltage drop and current density from within their PCB layout environment.

Tom Bastanza, Senior Sales Director at Altium said: “Our broad installed base of PCB designers faces growing power analysis challenges as designs become denser and more complex. Customers want a product that allows them to gain early visibility into power integrity issues and avoid the pain of prototype re-spins late in the design cycle. Power Analyzer saves time by identifying problem areas leveraging Keysight’s simulation and analysis expertise. It eliminates the need to hand over designs to a specialist for power distribution network validation because it empowers hardware engineers to see and remedy the problems for themselves right in their trusted Altium PCB layout environment.”

Niels Faché, Vice President and General Manager of PathWave Software Solutions at Keysight said: “This technology integration partnership is about democratizing simulation technology and digitally transforming the workflow for a large hardware engineering audience. It gives designers easy access to proven simulation algorithms that identify critical power distribution network issues early in the design process. Power Analyzer puts Keysight’s simulation directly into the hands of PCB designers to enable intelligent tradeoffs as well as faster development cycles.”

About Keysight Technologies

Keysight delivers advanced design and validation solutions that help accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world. Keysight’s dedication to speed and precision extends to software-driven insights and analytics that bring tomorrow’s technology products to market faster across the development lifecycle, in design simulation, prototype validation, automated software testing, manufacturing analysis, and network performance optimization and visibility in enterprise, service provider and cloud environments. Our customers span the worldwide communications and industrial ecosystems, aerospace and defense, automotive, energy, semiconductor and general electronics. Keysight generated revenues of $4.9B in fiscal year 2021. For more information about Keysight Technologies (NYSE: KEYS), visit us at www.keysight.com

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