SOLIDWORKS PCB Powered By Altium: Innovative PCB technology Unleashed

Collaboration is essential to today’s innovative and successful products. At the heart of SOLIDWORKS PCB is a set of tools designed to enable powerful and seamless collaboration with SOLIDWORKS. We’ve combined the best technology in PCB design with an easy-to-use interface to give you the productivity you need to get your PCBs designed quickly and easily.

SOLIDWORKS PCB combines the latest PCB design technology with the most seamless collaboration experience possible between electrical and mechanical design teams. SOLIDWORKS PCB doesn’t compromise on its core focus, offering a powerful set of PCB design features to meet the demands of today’s complex designs. We’ve packed in all of the latest design technology from over 50 years of R&D experience from Altium and SOLIDWORKS. This technology includes:

A powerful PCB design engine that gives you all the tools you need to get your designs done quickly and efficiently. From comprehensive design rule checks to real-time 3D clearance checking, you’ve got the features you need for your innovative designs.
A streamlined schematic editing environment has all the tools you need to bring your designs to life. Easily re-use design elements with a powerful library manager, and keep it all of your design data organized with hierarchical multi-sheet design.
An easy-to-use and unified interface lets you get to work immediately. A seamless interface between schematic editing and board layout keeps you at your most productive.

Enhanced Productivity With distinct Workflows, Managed ECO and lifecycles

Focus on just the electronic side of your design with SOLIDWORKS PCB, and work on the rest in parallel with SOLIDWORKS. Keep your electrical and mechanical design workflows separate but in sync, using the most productive tools for both sides of your design.

Develop the mechanical models of components in your mechanical environment and the electrical libraries for your components in the electrical environment–all while keeping your data tightly linked as two sides of the same component.
Push changes to component placement, board shape and mounting holes to and from SOLIDWORKS and SOLIDWORKS PCB in managed Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) so your designs stay in sync.
Manage the lifecycle states of component models separately in ECAD and MCAD worlds. Complete a 3D model without waiting for the ECAD component data, and even place a component without waiting for the mechanical model to be complete.

Integrate your design data

The key to successful product design is a seamless integration between both your mechanical and electrical worlds. Support for SOLIDWORKS models in SOLIDWORKS PCB allows you to transition between your MCAD and ECAD designs with ease.

Connect the ECAD environment directly to SOLIDWORKS to maintain your existing MCAD-based workflow.
Link directly to SOLIDWORKS models for enclosures and component bodies. Linking a native 3D file format in the ECAD environment helps simplify and automate your design workflow.
Open your board designs, with copper information, inside SOLIDWORKS and get a complete picture of your design. With copper information included, you can now perform deeper analysis with thermal, vibration and other mechanical simulations.