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Altium continues to provide new features in Altium Designer, its next generation electronics design software, to help electronics designers stay continuously updated on new technology and trends. “We think the days of an industry model that somehow forces users to wait for significant new releases and features, that appear only once every few years, are numbered,” says Nick Martin, CEO of Altium.

Altium is following its challenge to electronics designers to answer the question “What makes you so special?” (20 April 2009) by introducing a powerful alternative for front-end electronics designers that lets them reach into new areas of design and stay relevant in a fast changing industry.

Keithley Instruments, Inc. has introduced a variety of hardware, firmware, and software enhancements to its award-winning Model 4200-SCS Semiconductor Characterization System. The Keithley Test Environment Interactive (KTEI) V7.2 upgrade includes nine new solar cell test libraries, an expanded frequency range for the system’s Capacitance-Voltage (C-V) measurement capability, and support for the company’s new nine-slot Model 4200-SCS instrument chassis.

Keithley Instruments, Inc. announced that it is discontinuing its S600 Series parametric test product line. The Company will continue to accept orders for S600 Series testers until February 2010 and will continue to provide technical support, calibration, and repair services for five years through February 2014.

Altium Limited (ASX: ALU), the electronics design industry’s leading developer of unified electronic product development solutions, has reported results for the half-year ending 31 December 2008.

Altium asked all electronics designers to leave all preconceptions at the door at this year’s embedded world conference, held in Nuremberg, Germany, March 3-5, 2009.

Keithley Instruments, Inc. announces the release of its 2009 Test and Measurement Product Guide. The 144-page guide offers details and technical specifications on Keithley’s general-purpose and sensitive sourcing and measurement products, DC switching, RF switching and measurement, data acquisition solutions, semiconductor test systems, and optoelectronics test. A useful selector guide simplifies choosing the right solutions for specific applications. For a free copy of Keithley’s 2009 Test and Measurement Product Guide, visit http://www.keithley.info/catalog09.

Altium will be joined by customers from a range of industries to provide demonstrations and insights into the winter 09 release of Altium Designer at this year’s embedded world show. Altium’s live demonstrations will focus on how Altium Designer can help designers exploit today’s low-cost, high-performance FPGA devices. Altium’s latest release has a number of new design technologies and concepts to help electronics designers innovate, capitalise on advances in technology, and make the task of designing a product and getting it to market easier and faster.

Altium is again sponsoring the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a not-for-profit organization founded by inventor Dean Kamen to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology. The FRC is an annual event that challenges teams of students to develop a robot in a six-week time frame using a standard kit of parts and a common set of rules.

Altium has added a new file importer, for CADstar design files, to the latest release of its next generation electronics design solution, Altium Designer. It’s the latest addition to Altium Designer’s design translation wizard, which already supports legacy design files from Allegro, OrCAD, DX Designer, and PADS, as well as Altium’s earlier P-CAD and Protel design tools.

Altium has published a set of benchmarks for 3D PCB design performance using Altium Designer, its next generation electronics design solution. Altium is a pioneer of real-time, 3D PCB design environments, with the introduction of 3D board layouts, real-time 3D ECAD-MCAD collaboration, and now (with the launch of the winter 09 release of Altium Designer) enhanced performance in the PCB design engine. The latest winter 09 release uses less memory and run faster, up to six times faster in some systems.

Altium is introducing new live links from Altium Designer to the databases of component suppliers. The first live link will be to worldwide components supplier Digi-Key.