board fpga embedded systems founded 1985 founder nick martin 1 headquarters sydney australia san diego united states shanghai china karlsruhe germany amersfoort netherlands products altium designer vault circuitstudio circuitmaker tasking octopart ciiva revenue us 100 m fy 2016 website www.altium.com altium limited is an australian owned public software company that provides pc based electronics design software for engineers . founded in tasmania australia 1985 altium now has regional headquarters in australia china united states europe and japan with resellers in all other major markets . the company was known as protel until 2001 . contents 1 history 2 acquisitions 3 unifying electronics design 4 products 5 see also 6 references 7 further reading 8 external links history edit nicholas martin an electronics designer working at the university of tasmania in the 1980s recognized that the tools then available limited the ability to design printed circuit boards either through a difficult manual process or by requiring high priced software that required expensive mainframe computers . with the development of the personal computer martin saw an opportunity to make the design of electronics product affordable by marrying the techniques of electronics design to the pc platform . in 1985 he founded protel launching the company s first product later that same year a dos based printed circuit board pcb layout and design tool . in august 1999 altium was listed as a public company asx alu to assist in funding of strategic technology development and acquisition . the company continued to develop and release new versions of this design tool following protel for windows the world s first microsoft windows based pcb design system . 2 protel s headquarters resided in hobart tas australia until 1990 when nick martin decided to move the company to california s silicon valley which was proving to be a hot spot for technology companies . in 1994 he moved operations back to sydney followed by the successful ipo in august 1999 . after a number of strategic technology and company acquisitions see below the company changed its name to altium in 2001 . through various acquisitions altium has maintained a significant presence in the united states europe and asia . in 2011 altium announced it would be expanding its presence in shanghai china in the second half of 2011 ; again to be in a hot spot for technology companies . the company will remain an australian headquartered company and will continue to be listed on the australian stock exchange with a major administration presence in sydney . development continues to be a global effort with product development staff in united states ukraine australia and the netherlands . 3 on october 15 2012 the altium board removed nick martin as ceo and named executive vice chairman kayvan oboudiyat to replace him . 4 on october 23 2012 martin called for a general board meeting and disclosed he planned an attempt to oust four directors including oboudiyat . 5 briefly afterwards martin called off the meeting and conceded that the company should continue on without belligerence . on january 16 2014 altium announced kayvan oboudiyat s retirement and succession by aram mirkazemi as ceo . 6 in may of the same year altium announced that the core r & d operations for its flagship pcb cad tools would again relocate in a cost neutral move to san diego california . 7 this move is proposed in order for the development and senior management to be closer to the north american user base in an effort to maintain customer centricity for pcb cad tools . key hardware design services and internet of things iot development teams remain in shanghai to better service customers and business partners in china ; again reflecting a commitment to what the customers in each region need most . acquisitions edit in 1998 while still doing business as protel the company acquired accolade design automation founded by dr. david pellerin co author of vhdl made easy 8 in 2000 while still doing business as protel the company acquired accel a san diego based eda software developer . altium acquired tasking in 2001 for a 73.4 million 9 a supplier of embedded software design technology that was integrated into altium s product offerings to create a complete electronics design system . in 2002 altium acquired hoschar ag the largest eda software distributor in europe which formed altium s european regional headquarters in karlsruhe germany . 10 in 2010 altium acquired morfik technology pty ltd. a developer of visual design tools for engineering and deploying cloud based software applications . in 2015 altium acquired octopart a search engine for electronic and industrial parts . 11 12 in 2015 altium acquired ciiva a cloud based electronic component management system . 13 other strategic acquisitions protel altium has acquired several technologies and related companies throughout the company s history including 14 neurocad hence the neuroroute autorouter and its algorithms idk techspert incases engineering gmbh acquisition of signal integrity simulation source code microcode inc. green mountain vhdl simulation software source code metamor inc. innovative cad software inc. unifying electronics design edit in the mid 1990s the industry was moving towards the use of newly affordable technologies such as field programmable gate arrays fpgas instead of individual components fixed to a pcb 15 but the design tools used for pcbs and those used for programmable logic systems were markedly different and the difference was becoming an obstacle to electronics design . 16 to counter the limitations imposed by separate stand alone design tools or domain specific tool chains the company began developing a unified electronics design system which uses a single data model to hold all of the design data required to create a product . fpga pcb and embedded software development processes were unified with a common project view and data model . a variety of editing tools could then be used to access and manipulate the design covering areas such as board layout and design schematic capture routing eda testing analysis and fpga design . 17 in the second half of the 1990s the company began acquisition of various companies with the technologies needed to create a unified electronics design solution . in 1999 it listed on the australian securities exchange to generate the capital to conclude these acquisitions 18 and in 2001 the company changed its name to altium to distinguish its products from the earlier protel pcb layout solutions . due to the limitations of existing software platforms altium created its own platform called design explorer dxp hosted on microsoft s windows operating system which formed the foundation of the altium designer product . the first version was released in 2004 with major new releases in 2005 2007 2008 and 2009 . in september 2010 altium announced the pending acquisition of morfik technology a provider of cloud based software applications in an all stock transaction worth an estimated a 3.3 million . the move signaled the company s expectations that cloud technology will pervade future electronic and embedded systems . the deal was completed in november 2010 . morfik s founders originally worked for altium protel before leaving to found the company after altium s ipo . 19 20 products edit altium designer unified electronics design solution . altiumlive the cloud based community that connects altium designers collaborators suppliers manufacturers and customers . altium vaults formal release re use and design data management server software . circuitmaker free pcb design tool targeted at students hobbyists hackers and makers . nanoboard reconfigurable hardware development platform . tasking an embedded systems software development tool . p cad obtained through acceleda acquisition retired in 2006 . autotrax the original protel pcb design software for dos . see also edit list of eda companies electronics electronic engineering fpgas embedded systems printed circuit board pcb list of companies of australia references edit nick martin executive focus february 1 2005 kevin morris fpga and programmable logic journal tomorrow s world the australian initiative . north sydney associated publishing corporation apc . 1995 . isbn 0 646 25348 4 . altium to relocate its global headquarters to shanghai china end of an era martin out of altium martin s response to altium board kayvan oboudiyat announces retirement altium to relocate hq to usa pellerin david 1996 . vhdl made easy . duvall wa prentice hall . p. 432 . isbn 0136507638 . altium pty ltd 2001 06 30 . altium annual report 2001 pdf . altium . retrieved 2012 02 14 . altium ltd 2002 07 17 . media release july 17 2002 pdf . altium . retrieved 2013 09 26 . wurzel sam 2015 08 13 . octopart is joining altium . octopart . retrieved 2015 08 13 . altium says to acquire octopart . reuters . 2015 08 13 . retrieved 2015 08 13 . altium acquires ciiva . ciiva . 2015 08 13 . retrieved 2015 08 13 . altium pty ltd 2001 06 30 . altium annual report 2001 pdf . altium . retrieved 2012 02 14 . goossens paul 2008 03 01 . from c to hardware using fpgas and compilers pdf . elektor . retrieved 2009 03 04 . chen wai kai 2002 12 01 . circuits and filters handbook 2nd edition . boca raton crc press . pp. 2159 2161 . isbn 0 8493 0912 3 . morris kevin 2007 07 19 . altium s alternative turning system design inside out . fpga and structured asic journal . archived from the original on 11 march 2009 . retrieved 2009 03 05 . altium limited alu asx listed company information fact sheet . australian securities exchange . 2009 . archived from the original on 19 february 2009 . retrieved 2009 03 04 . martin nick 2010 10 08 . morfik and altium . morfik . retrieved 2012 02 14 . yousofi siamack 2010 10 08 . morfik past present and future . morfik . retrieved 2012 02 14 . further reading edit morris kevin 2010 12 14 . head in the clouds . altium leads another design tool revolution . electronic engineering journal . retrieved 2011 03 31 . maxfield clive 2008 07 07 . software focus drives altium s ambition . eda designline . retrieved 2009 03 04 . maxfield clive 2008 02 05 . altium launch innovation station featuring the desktop nanoboard . programmable logic designline . retrieved 2009 03 04 . morris kevin 2007 11 27 . altium goes 3d board design can be fun . fpga & structured asic journal . archived from the original on 19 february 2009 . retrieved 2009 03 04 . miller nick 2007 10 30 . altium s altitude attitude . sydney morning herald . retrieved 2009 03 04 . goering richard 2006 11 14 . altium links pc boards with mechanical cad . eda deignline . retrieved 2009 03 04 . external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to altium . official site wiki site for altium retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title altium & oldid 743646302 categories companies established in 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