DFM Altium PCB Layout Add-On

Mulino, Ore. – Mar. 18, 2008 – Sunstone Circuits (Sunstone), the Mulino, Ore.-based printed circuit board (PCB) prototype solutions provider, posted today a free factory certified Design For Manufacture (DFM) Add-On that implements Sunstone’s manufacturing capabilities interactively inside Altium Designer. The new download extends Sunstone’s line of DFM Add-Ons developed to help customers reduce time and costs within the entire PCB design and manufacture environment.

“The Sunstone ECOsystem^SM was created to break down barriers and relieve pain points through every step of the PCB prototype design, manufacture and assembly process,” said Terry Heilman, CEO of Sunstone Circuits. “Sunstone’s support of world-class design environments such as Altium Designer is just another critical step we are taking to improve efficiencies across the industry and directly better our customer’s experience.”

Benefits to users of the DFM Add-On include:

• Reduced costs - helps eliminate design errors early in the design process, minimizing the need for more turns and costly corrections later.
• Reduced time - design a PCB more quickly by utilizing an existing rule deck instead of users creating their own.
• Process simplification – relieve pain points in the design process by following a factory certified rule deck every step of the way.

“Taking a board to manufacturing can be a daunting task for engineers of any experience level, from simple double sided layouts to complex multi-layer monsters,” said Jason Hingston, associate director of board implementation at Altium. “These new DFM rule sets from Sunstone make ease of manufacturing an integral part of the design process from the beginning, rather than a potentially costly iteration at the end of the design phase. For Altium, this is a useful extension to our unified solution to electronics design, which embraces hardware, software and programmable hardware in a single design environment, and allows electronics designers to go from concepts and capture through to layout, test and deployment.”

“Historically, end users often needed to produce their own interpretation of the fabrication rules, which is a cumbersome process that often leads to errors in the design process downstream,” said Matt Stevenson, Sunstone Quality Assurance Manager. “The longer it takes to find a mistake, the more expensive it is to fix while adding unnecessary time to the design process.”

Sunstone’s DFM Add-On for Altium Designer can be downloaded from Sunstone’s website at
http://www.sunstone.com/pcb-resources/Downloads.aspx.

Best-in-Class Design Options for All PCB Designers
As a part of the Sunstone ECOsystem^SM, which was created to break down barriers in the PCB industry and provide customers with the best possible support and tools, DFM Add-Ons help bring a seamless design flow to design and assembly services. The ECOsystem represents a strategic resource that will consolidate and improve the PCB prototyping process for designers from concept-to-delivery by integrating the four discrete segments of PCB prototyping:

• Knowledge – PCB designer expertise
• Tools – design packages and software
• Libraries and Parts – Sourcing and tracking of PCB components
• Manufacturing – PCB manufacturing capability and expertise

About Sunstone Circuits
Based in Mulino, Ore, Sunstone Circuits is a printed circuit board (PCB) solutions provider with a fabrication facility for prototyping and quickturn manufacturing. With more than 35 years of experience in delivering quality, on-time printed circuit boards (PCBs) for the quickturn and prototype markets, Sunstone Circuits is dedicated to improving the PCB prototyping process from quote to delivery (Q2D^®) and providing its customers with support 24/7/365. Sunstone Circuits’ online services are available at Sunstone.com, PCBexpress.com and PCB123.com.

About Altium
Altium Limited (ASX:ALU) is the leading developer of electronic product development solutions dedicated to unifying the different design disciplines involved in electronics product development. Altium products ensure all electronic engineers, designers, developers, and their organizations take maximum advantage of emerging design technologies to bring smarter products to market faster and easier. Founded in 1985, Altium has headquarters in Sydney, Australia, sales offices in the United States, Europe, Japan, China, and resellers in all other major markets. For more information on Altium and Altium Designer, please visit http://www.altium.com/.

Trademarks
Q2D^® and PCB123 are trademarked by Sunstone Circuits. Altium and Altium Designer, and their respective logos, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Altium Limited or its subsidiaries.