View source for MISC-TN-023: Altium Designer-based workflow

== Requirements ==
In order to implement a smooth integration towards all the company's departments, the workflow had to satisfy multiple requirements. The most important are:
* '''Technical documents for manufacturing''': At the end of the design process, a set of standardized technical documents has to be generated automatically for the manufacturing department. This set must be equivalent to the ones produced by other hardware design workflows already in use, which are based on different tools.
* '''Database interfacing''': The hardware projects must be interfaced to the existing component's database, which is shared across all the company departments (purchasing, manufacturing, R&D, etc.). From this database, several data are retrieved during the design process. These data are stored in the project for each instantiated component. Examples are the manufacturer code, the operating temperature range, the nominal value of passive components, etc. This information is required for bill of materials (BOM) management and post-design automatic checks.
* '''Projects sharing''': Nowadays, it is often necessary to share the hardware projects with other departments or partners outside the company. In this regard, the native [https://www.altium.com/altium-365 Altium 365<sup>®</sup>] platform does the job superbly and therefore was included in the workflow. From an engineering perspective, the support of [https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-designer/using-version-control Git-based version control] is outstandingly useful because allows to synchronize the modifications made by all the people working on the same projects, being them internal or external resources.