MCAD CoDesigner
Easily synchronize your design between Altium Designer
and the most popular MCAD systems
Watch Overview
03:20
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Accurate Design Data
Reduce misalignments and errors between electrical & mechanical designs by preserving the accuracy of native data transferred between both domains.
Elevated Collaboration
Design better products and increase innovation by enabling bi-directional design data sharing and communications between electrical and mechanical teams.
Time Efficiency
Reduce lost time, design delays, and bottlenecks that occur when teams are waiting to export, share, and import intermediate CAD files between teams.
Key Capabilities
Advanced Copper Geometry in MCAD
Give your mechanical designer all the data they need to perform detailed mechanical checks or FEA with advanced geometry support for extruded copper and via transfers.
ECAD-MCAD Rigid-Flex Synchronization
Design your electronics to meet the needs of today’s portable and flexible devices with rigid-flex support.
ECAD-MCAD Native Component Linkage
While Parasolid models might work well for some situations, native component models provide additional benefits. They allow engineers working in each domain (electrical and mechanical) to leverage the full capabilities of their specific software, ensuring accurate representation, data retention, and proper output generation during fabrication and BOMs creation.
MCAD-ECAD Enclosure Exchange
Enclosures can fail to fit together at the prototyping phase, and the PCB often contains restrictions based on the mechanical enclosure. Altium MCAD CoDesigner makes it easy to transfer a 3D enclosure model from the MCAD to Altium Designer.
Advanced History
The Altium MCAD CoDesigner panel displays the full history of accepted and rejected changes from both the electrical and mechanical sides. As soon as changes are applied or rejected by the mechanical engineer, you will see a notification in Altium Designer.
Supported MCAD Tools
& Feature Matrix
A built-in panel, displayed in both Altium Designer and your mechanical CAD,
allows engineers to push and pull changes with a mouse click. No manual
conversion or exchange of files is required.
Functionality
Get the MCAD CoDesigner Feature Matrix in PDF format
MCAD CoDesigner App
Basic ECAD-MCAD Communication
Enable bi-directional communication between ECAD and MCAD domains, allowing changes to be reflected and updated on either side.
Learn more: Technical Doc | Video
Supported MCAD tools
SOLIDWORKS®, PTC Creo®, Autodesk Inventor®, Autodesk Fusion 360®Supported MCAD tools
Siemens NX
Sync Keepouts and Rooms
Synchronize and update PCB keepout and room areas in both ECAD and MCAD environments.
Learn more: Technical Doc | Video
Advanced Copper Geometry
Create precise copper 3D models in MCAD (including vias and plated pad barrels) for FEA purposes, advanced mechanical checks, etc.
Available for SOLIDWORKS®, PTC Creo®, Autodesk Inventor®, Siemens NX
Learn more: Technical Doc | Video
Rigid-Flex Synchronization
Collaborate with mechanical engineers on the design of rigid-flex boards.
Available for SOLIDWORKS®, PTC Creo®
Learn more: Technical Doc | Video
MCAD-driven Component Placement
Place components in MCAD so that they are recognized in ECAD (available for SW, Creo, Inventor), or use the native MCAD components when transferring PCB from ECAD to MCAD.
Available for SOLIDWORKS®, PTC Creo®, Siemens NX
Learn more: Technical Doc | Video
Enclosure Exchange
Send a mechanical enclosure from MCAD to ECAD directly from your device assembly and simplify the design process in ECAD.
Learn more: Technical Doc | Video
Advanced History
View the detailed history of accepted and rejected changes between the electrical and mechanical teams, along with the rejection comments.
Learn more: Technical Doc | Video
Pull a Previous Revision
Ability to select which revision to Pull from a list of previous Pushes in MCAD.
Learn more: Technical Doc
Multiboard Assembly Synchronization
For Multiboard projects, synchronize the entire Multiboard Assembly (the full set of PCBs and the mechanical enclosure) at once and simplify checking the overall product layout in ECAD.
Learn more: Technical Doc | Video
Harness Design Synchronization
Supports transferring the Harness elements from ECAD to MCAD (connectors, wires, splices, connectivity, and harness topology) and MCAD to ECAD transfer of the physical lengths of wires, cables, and harness segments.
Learn more: Technical Doc | Video
Get the MCAD CoDesigner Feature Matrix in PDF format
Trusted by Industry
Leaders and Startups Alike
With over ten thousand companies worldwide using Altium 365 to design electronics,
the platform has become the new modern standard in hardware design.
Senior Electrical Engineer, Quantel Laser
“With MCAD CoDesigner, we can detect potential problems like we couldn’t before. We can see silkscreens and hidden vias, make sure polarities are correct, and where copper traces are—our models are now 100% complete, including overlay and copper. I don’t have to worry about board shapes or connector placements, even in very tight spaces..”
Lead Engineer, Kinetic Vision
“We have firmware developers, system engineers, project managers, and mechanical engineers using Altium 365 as a viewer/markup tool for hardware designs. The MCAD collaboration tools and 3D visualization tools are invaluable when integrating with other teams. Altium 365’s unbeatable visualization tools give us a true experiential vision for workflow.”
Senior Electronic Engineer, YASA
“Our mechanical designers always have the most up-to-date ECAD files whenever they need them. I can push the latest design changes directly to their MCAD tool.”
Want to try MCAD CoDesigner?
Start collaborating today!