Embedded World: Altium, FTDI Chip collaborate on new board level components

Electronics designers can access the FTDI components from the 'Hobart Vault' section of the AltiumLive website. 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. FTDI specialises in solutions for converting legacy peripherals to the USB connectivity standard. According to the company, it offers an easy route for the addition of a USB port into a system design or the migration from serial interfaces such as RS232 of FIFO to USB. FTDI provides a combination of hardware and royalty free USB drivers that have been validated with USB host class drivers. In collaboration with FTDI, 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, content development manager 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." Fred Dart, founder and CEO of FTDI Chip, added: "The partnership with Altium is a natural progression for FTDI Chip, in our continuing strategy to allow for simple end to end USB implementation. 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: FT-series USB to UART/FIFO bridge devices; Vinculum-II (VNC2) Programmable USB 2.0 Host; and Vinculum (VNC1) Embedded USB Host Controller. Altium will be exhibiting in Hall 5, Stand 333