Altium and FTDI Chip collaborate on new board-level components

CHINA & UK: Altium, developer of next-generation electronics design software and services, has announced the full range of board-level IC component solutions from Future Technology Devices International (FTDI Chip) is available for its electronics design software, Altium Designer, through the AltiumLive portal. Electronics designers using Altium Designer will now have direct access to new components that include a comprehensive range of FTDI Chip devices to meet their USB connectivity needs.

FTDI Chip specializes in total solutions for converting legacy peripherals to the USB connectivity standard. For designers, FTDI offers an easy route for the addition of a USB port into their system design or the migration from serial interfaces, such as RS232 or FIFO, to USB. FTDI solutions are a combination of hardware and royalty free USB drivers, that have been validated with USB host class drivers, so that engineers can be assured of a robust design.

In close collaboration with FTDI Chip, Altium has developed and released a full set of board-level components for FTDI Chip's current IC catalogue that is ready to use within Altium Designer. All components in the FTDI Chip product families include models for schematic symbol and PCB component with 3D body information.

“Altium is moving into a new model of industry partnerships to provide third party libraries, templates, reference designs and other ready-to-use IP for our Altium Designer users," said Rowland Washington for Altium. "I believe this close collaboration between Altium and parts manufacturers produces design IP that our customers can trust ‘out-of-the-box’, and adds significant value to being a member of the Altium design community. We are very pleased to have FTDI Chip on board to provide easy access to its elegant USB connectivity solutions for our worldwide user base."

The board-level components for FTDI Chip devices are available through Altium’s ‘Hobart Vault’, one of Altium’s managed component repositories of ready-to-use design elements accessible through the AltiumLive portal. Altium Designer 10 users can access these components by connecting to the Hobart Vault directly from within their Altium Designer software using their AltiumLive credentials, or by browsing to the AltiumLive Content Store.

“The partnership with Altium is a natural progression for FTDI Chip, in our continuing strategy to allow for simple end to end USB implementation,” said Fred Dart, founder and CEO of FTDI Chip. “As a long term advocate of Altium design software, we are delighted that this partnership will allow our customers to easily access and re-use quality models for our devices in their design process.”

The released board-level components provide access to the full FTDI Chip product line, consisting of the FT Series family of USB device bridges and the Vinculum family of USB Host / Device controllers. This includes:

- The FT-series USB to UART/FIFO bridge devices
- The Vinculum-II (VNC2) Programmable USB 2.0 Host
- The Vinculum (VNC1) Embedded USB Host Controller

All components are available from FTDI Chip and its global sales network.