List of the Top 7 PCB Design Software for Altium Designer in 2025

BQRG's software suite offers patented tools for automated electronic design analysis and optimization to enhance your design processes: SynthelyzerTM ECAD Plugin supercharges PCB design by providing real-time stress analysis, derating, and thermal simulations, all while seamlessly integrating with ECAD systems to ensure optimal component choices and avert costly mistakes. fiXtress® stands out as a powerful asset in reliability engineering; featuring cutting-edge FMECA, stress, and failure predictions, it helps to prolong product life and reduce downtime significantly. When paired with Synthelyzer™, this combination leads to unmatched design optimization. CircuitHawk™ helps speed up time-to-market by identifying design issues at an early stage, and its sophisticated verification and stress analysis capabilities lay a solid groundwork for creating dependable products. apmOptimizer® is designed to enhance asset value and operational efficiency; through LCC analysis and predictive maintenance strategies, it helps lower costs, optimize spare parts inventory, and guarantees seamless operations. Finally, CARE® prioritizes product safety and ensures adherence to regulatory standards, providing a complete solution for compliance and quality assurance in your designs. This suite collectively transforms the electronic design landscape, making it more efficient and reliable.

The PDN Analyzer tool from Altium seamlessly integrates with Altium Designer, enabling users to efficiently identify and resolve problems like inadequate or excessive copper and unpredictable voltage drops. Additionally, it can pinpoint issues such as low voltage at key power points, copper islands, or peninsulas that may affect the performance of your PCB's power system. The PDN encompasses the complete power distribution network for active circuits on printed circuit boards, including all connections between the voltage regulator module, the metallization pads, and the integrated device dies responsible for power supply and return. To ensure that the power delivery network adheres to the IC supply voltage requirements, every segment must be scrutinized. An accurate validation of your power budget requires careful consideration of the minimum and maximum device specifications, potential worst-case voltage drops, cumulative return-path currents, and additional factors. With PDN Analyzer, you receive precise insights into the locations of these issues, facilitating a more effective design process. By addressing these concerns, designers can enhance the reliability and efficiency of their power delivery systems.

Effortlessly mend compromised copper areas during interactive editing sessions, which allows for the smooth refinement of user-defined design choices. Users can reposition components and enclosures within the 3D environment while concurrently benefiting from immediate clash detection for any discrepancies. When confronted with particular technological requirements, one can leverage advanced features such as flexi-rigid design, embedded components, and chip-on-board technology to meet specific functional objectives. Pulsonix streamlines the creation of an inclusive Bill of Materials (BOM), pick and place lists, PCB acceptance reports, and netlists in multiple formats, whether opting for our standard selections or crafting your own. A notable aspect of Pulsonix is the incorporation of construction lines, enabling users to set guiding lines within their design, thus aiding in the formation of intricate board outlines and the alignment of unconventional shapes or elements. Furthermore, you have the ability to establish guidelines for the automatic creation of naming conventions for both new designs and existing styles, thereby improving organization and uniformity in your design endeavors. This holistic approach guarantees that users can attain exceptional levels of precision and productivity in their design workflows, ultimately leading to more innovative and efficient outcomes.

Engineers from prominent electronics companies worldwide turn to Quilter for their design solutions. Seamlessly integrating with existing designs and libraries, Quilter guarantees that all finished projects are provided in the original file format, facilitating easy review, adjustments, and export. To get started, you simply create your schematic using your chosen ECAD tool, such as Altium or KiCAD, and upload your schematic alongside an empty board file. Quilter adeptly recognizes the connections between components, allowing you to easily specify any design constraints for your board. We thoroughly check tolerances against leading fabrication houses to ensure dependability. Quilter analyzes multiple options and verifies that each design adheres to design rule checks (DRCs). After evaluating the choices, you can pick your preferred design and download the necessary files for production and testing. Unlike conventional auto routers, Quilter mimics the approach of a human designer, skillfully handling all aspects of PCB design, from trace routing and component placement to board stackup management and custom pour generation. This groundbreaking software significantly simplifies and enhances the design process, ultimately improving engineers' productivity and creativity. By leveraging Quilter's capabilities, engineers can focus on innovation while the software handles the intricacies of design.

The pace at which your product enters production is contingent upon the testability of your design. Unfortunately, physical testing cannot always detect prevalent errors that may result in expensive delays. With XJTAG®, the DFT Assistant seamlessly integrates into your Altium Designer environment, conducting Design For Test (DFT) evaluations directly on your schematic. This tool allows you to verify that the scan chains are properly linked to every JTAG-enabled component in your design, ensuring accurate and correct connections and terminations of each signal. Before you complete your layout, XJTAG® DFT Assistant thoroughly examines your JTAG-enabled devices, providing a crucial checkpoint. Additionally, XJTAG® Chain Checker identifies typical pitfalls and notifies you promptly, helping to prevent issues that could complicate JTAG testing later on. By implementing these tools, you can significantly enhance the reliability of your design and streamline the manufacturing process.

AllSpice enhances your speed to market by facilitating modern revision control and collaboration for digital designs. It eliminates the hassle of lengthy, in-person meetings by enabling asynchronous review sessions that can be conducted digitally. By managing design reviews similarly to a pull request, you can streamline the process significantly. Furthermore, you can automate your review packages by generating PCB, schematic, or BOM redlines that clearly indicate any changes made to your designs. This system functions like a software diff, but tailored for circuitry rather than code. To ensure that you and your team avoid repeating errors, you can establish checklists and templates that automatically fill in for new design reviews. Improved design reviews are crucial for agile hardware development, allowing you to submit updates and receive feedback with ease. Additionally, you can grant access to team members outside your immediate group, such as mechanical or firmware engineers, by providing them with a browser view of your designs. This collaborative approach not only enhances communication but also fosters a more integrated development environment, ultimately leading to more efficient project outcomes.

JTAG Maps™, a user-friendly extension for Altium, enables engineers to efficiently evaluate the testing capabilities offered by JTAG devices integrated into their designs. Previously, engineers dedicated significant time to manually marking boundary-scan nets within a design to assess their coverage. The boundary scan device model files, known as BSDLs, play an essential role in the JTAG and boundary scanning process by specifying which pins can be manipulated through JTAG. JTAG Maps supports BSDL models and includes an option to 'assume scanner covered.' While many users may opt for the Altium coverage report provided by JTAG Maps, there is also an option to import a more comprehensive analysis. Additionally, data can be exported to JTAG ProVision for in-depth evaluation, allowing engineers to gain further insights. Subsequently, a straightforward message file that encompasses complete fault-coverage details can be re-imported into JTAG Maps for visualization and highlighting purposes. This streamlined process significantly reduces the time engineers need to spend on testing assessments.