Altium 365: The First Cloud Platform for PCB Design, Empowering Collaboration and Accelerating Time‑to‑Market

Altium, LLC has unveiled Altium 365, the industry’s inaugural cloud platform dedicated to printed circuit board (PCB) design. Built over two years, the solution seamlessly fuses Altium Designer’s robust desktop capabilities with cloud‑based collaboration tools, enabling engineers, suppliers, and manufacturers to work together from concept to production.

With remote work becoming the norm in the electronics sector—especially accelerated by the COVID‑19 pandemic—Altium 365 lets designers create, review, and iterate on PCBs from any internet‑enabled device, eliminating the need for a fixed office desktop.

A standout feature is its native integration with Altium Designer, allowing teams to co‑design in real time while maintaining the full power of the desktop software. This tight coupling reduces miscommunication, cuts redesign cycles, and shortens time‑to‑market.

Altium 365 extends collaboration beyond those who own Altium Designer. Stakeholders—electrical, mechanical, and software engineers—can share, visualize, and annotate designs through secure web links. Non‑Altium users receive read‑only access, while designers with the full suite can connect directly to the PCB file, make changes, and push updates instantly.

All project assets—including components, schematics, layouts, and libraries—reside in a single, cloud‑hosted workspace, ensuring every team member accesses the most up‑to‑date information. This central repository boosts design speed and consistency across distributed teams.

Key capabilities include co‑design for electrical and mechanical engineers and the ability to share secure web links for real‑time review with internal and external stakeholders.

Michael Perkins, director at Skyships—a Tier One automotive manufacturer—notes that Altium 365 has “strengthened the link between design and production.” He highlights faster collaboration across geographically dispersed teams and increased overall productivity.

Co‑design is further enhanced through native integration with PTC Creo, Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks, and Autodesk Inventor. This synergy allows PCB designers and mechanical CAD specialists to iterate together, eliminating costly back‑and‑forth between disciplines.

Altium 365 also streamlines manufacturing by enabling designers to package and distribute files with secure links, simplifying handoff to fabrication partners and reducing lead times.

>> This article was originally published on our sister site, Electronic Products.