Altium's new master distributors are Advanced Technology Corporation of Japan, ADT Co., Ltd., Ryoyo Electro Corporation, Sophia Systems Co. Ltd., Tokyo Electron Device Limited and Vitec System Engineering Inc.
These appointments build on Altium's growth in Japan over the past 12 months, including a record growth of 78% in sales last quarter (compared to the previous corresponding period).
In partnership with these master distributors, Altium will rapidly expand its sales and support in the Japanese electronics design sector. The master distributors will sell both Altium's unified electronics design solution, Altium Designer, and Altium's desktop NanoBoard reconfigurable development platform.
Altium Designer provides a single, unified view of all electronics design processes. By providing a single data model, Altium Designer, in conjunction with Altium's desktop NanoBoard, lets electronics designers rapidly create prototypes, explore alternative design concepts, and explore different device options interactively and in real time. By moving electronics design to a higher level of abstraction, and by providing easy re-use of previously-designed elements, Altium lets engineers focus on what makes a design valuable: the parts of the design that differentiates them from their competitors.
Altium's desktop NanoBoard gives designers a new way to focus on creating the device intelligence at the core of the design, without having to make a choice about the desired programmable device up front. They can create their designs using Altium Designer and any one of the royalty-free IP cores that are provided by Altium. They can then load that design on to the desktop NanoBoard to test, analyze and de-bug the design. Designers can create prototypes in a matter of days, rather than having to wait weeks for custom prototype boards to be produced for testing. They can explore new design concepts and devices using the range of daughter boards available for the NanoBoard on the fly, with the NanoBoard recognizing new devices in real-time. Once the design is approved, a final choice of programmable device and peripherals can be made, and Altium Designer then makes it easy to take the design to custom PCB design and manufacture.
Altium Designer's unified design environment lets electronics designers collaborate in real time, with the entire design team able to plug into a single design environment giving them the same view of the design. This unified design approach allows a dramatically simplified relationship between the electronics design team and the rest of the organization.
And this single data model and single view of the design allows one-touch generation of all the data needed to produce everything required for manufacturing, assembly, procurement -- everything needed to bring the finished design to life.
Altium Designer also allows for real-time 3D visualization of the design on the fly, with dynamic linking into the MCAD files allowing real-time clearance and collision detection.
Satoshi Yamada, Regional Director Japan for Altium, said, "These new partners represent a strong investment by Altium in the Japanese market, and by the major FPGA vendors in Altium. With Altium's vendor-independent solution, they and Altium can provide next-generation solutions to Japan's electronic designers in new ways. More of the design can be pushed into programmable hardware at the center of the design process. Altium's single design environment makes it easy for electronics professionals to use their skill-sets in this new 'soft design' space, raising their effectiveness and giving them new ways to create new designs.
"The appointment of these new partners is part of our increased investment program to help expand Altium's localized technical and sales support for Japanese electronics designers."
Akira Houmura, President and CEO of ASCO, said, "Altium Designer's unified architecture provides designers with a much-improved design environment that is more flexible, and which lets them bring designs to market much quicker. Our ability to combine Altium Designer with the range of FPGA devices that we offer will see us increase our ability to move programmable hardware into the market so that designers can focus on creating the intelligence at the heart of their designs."
Nobuyuki Oshima, Director, Marketing Department of ADT Co., Ltd, said, "Working with Altium will let us broaden our solutions considerably, and we expect Altium Designer to become the de facto solution for creating the next generation of electronic designs."
Takumi Tokunaga, General Manager, Semiconductor Sales Department.1 of Ryoyo Electro Corporation, said, "As a reseller of semiconductor products, this partnership with Altium allows our company to expand our offerings to embrace electronics design solutions. With its unified approach to electronics design, and its functionality across the design of hardware, software and programmable hardware, we see Altium Designer becoming the standard electronics design tool in the Japan in the future."
Katsumi Harashima, President of Sophia System Co., Ltd, said, "Teaming with Altium will allow us to provide an exciting solution to the education, that combines Altium Designer's unified design environment and our own specialist education solution. This is a tremendous opportunity to bring the next-generation design environment to the next generation of electronics designers."
Yasuo Hatsumi, Director and Xilinx Product Manager, PLD Solution Division of Tokyo Electron Device Co., Ltd, said, "As a reseller of Xilinx devices, teaming with Altium gives us a truly comprehensive solution which embraces FPGA design and board level design. Designers will be able to use Altium designer's advanced schematic capture, layout and design tools, and FPGA programming tools, to create their designs in Xilinx devices all within the same, unified design environment."
Fujio Mizuno, Senior Operating Officer, Sales Department, Application Engineering Division of Vitec System Engineering, said, "Having Altium as a partner will allow our company to expand our offerings significantly to our customers and to the market. Our company sells both software and electronics design tools. Altium Designer bridges both areas, and provides software designers with the perfect tool to create new electronic designs in new ways."
For more information go to the following web sites:
Altium: http://www.altium.com
Advanced Technology Corporation of Japan: http://www.atc-tk.co.jp
ADT Co., Ltd.: http://www.adt.co.jp
Ryoyo Electro Corporation: http://www.ryoyo.co.jp/english/index.html
Sophia Sysmtes Co., Ltd.: http://www.sophia-systems.co.jp
Tokyo Electron Device Limited: http://www.teldevice.co.jp/eng/index.html
Vitec System Engineering Inc.: http://www.vse-japan.com
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