About Altium

Altium (known as Protel before 2001) is a listed technology company (ASX:ALU).

Our vision remains this:

To break down the barriers to innovation and technological advancement by providing the best possible design tools to the widest possible audience of electronics designers.

Although this has remained constant over the years, the implementation has evolved, driven by new developments in electronics and computer technology.

In 1985, when we introduced our first product, we were one of the first to harness the newly arrived IBM-compatible personal computers for electronics design tasks. In 1991, before Microsoft Windows became the standard PC operating system, we released the world's first Windows-based printed circuit board (PCB) design software. In 1998 we introduced Protel-98, the first software package to handle all core electronics design tasks in a single integrated application.

In 2005 we introduced Altium Designer which redefined electronics design tools. In addition to supporting the design of printed circuit boards, the core of electronics systems, it also included integrated design tools for the rapidly emerging programmable hardware in electronics systems. This culminated in the world's first unified electronics design solution. Since then, we have introduced a number of world-first innovations. These include the first "plug-n-play" vendor-independent reconfigurable development board, and the first 3D electronics design features to dynamically link electronics designs to mechanical designs.

As the technology of programmable devices has developed, we have created new approaches to allow electronics designers to harness these capabilities using their existing design skills. We continue to focus on helping designers and their organizations lift their capabilities and adopt a much more holistic approach to design by:

  • Unifying the design of electronic systems with both the aesthetic and mechanical aspects of their products;
  • Plugging the electronics design process into the world of procurement and manufacturing;
  • Adding intelligence to their devices so that they can program rather than manufacture features into their products;
  • And, once their devices become intelligent, to use them as enablers for establishing a real-time relationship between their organization and their customers.

Through all of this we continue to provide our technology to as many of today's electronics designers as possible and seek to enable a new generation to emerge as the electronics designers of tomorrow.

As a business, we generate the majority of our revenues by selling licenses of our electronics design tools. Today, Altium has over 20,000 users on our latest generation design solution supported by approximately 300 employees worldwide. Our operations are headquartered in Sydney, Australia, with direct sales and support offices in Australia, China, Germany, and the United States. Altium is supported by a large reseller representative network in all other major markets. See more for corporate facts.

Customer snapshot

Altium's solutions are used daily across a wide range of industries including telecommunications, automotive, aerospace, defense, medicine, science, and consumer electronics. Our customers range from individual designers and small to medium enterprises to larger organizations such as 3M, Bang & Olufsen, Boeing, British Aerospace, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Cessna, Cochlear, Fujitsu, GE, General Dynamics, Honeywell, HP, Hughes Electronics, IBM, Infineon, Intel, L-3 Communications, Linn, Lockheed Martin, Marshall, Microsoft, Motorola, NASA, National Semiconductor, Naval Research Laboratory, NEC, Northrop Grumman, Pelco, Philips, Raytheon, ResMed, Robert Bosch, Schlumberger, Siemens, Sony, Texas Instruments, Thales. Learn more about our customers' experiences using Altium's solutions, and how we have helped them change the way they do electronics design.