What is your favorite PCB software?
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From: Jim Granville on 11 Apr 2008 23:49 Joseph H Allen wrote: > In article <pOidnUGOS6oVsGfanZ2dnUVZ_ramnZ2d(a)giganews.com>, > Joel <joelbenway(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >>Just curious about what everyone uses. I've been using Orcad PCB editor. > > > PADS Power PCB 3.5.1 (version from around 2000) and started with PADS for > DOS. I would have started with DOS OrCAD PCB tool, but it was more > expensive than PADS at the time. I have the Specctra auto-router for it > (withdrawn when Cadence bought it). Never tried the Blaze auto-router. Oh, > I used this with DOS OrCAD and Viewdraw. > > I've since used Cadance tools: Allegro and Concept. They annoy me. > > Actually that brings up another question: do people actually use > auto-routers anymore? Yes, and they give quite good results, used correctly. On large layercounts, they can pull ahead of manual design easily. They are so fast on modern PCs, they can be used as a) fast prototype-generation. The SW team (often much larger than the PCB divn), often cannot start detailed work, until they have a functional lash-up. b) as Placement checks. You can trial half a dozen placement combos, and choose the best one for clean-up, in a morning. > I used Specctra successfully on a bunch of PCB > projects. Everyone who uses Allegro seems to hand-route everything. > Perhaps the setup work to use the auto-router for high speed signals is as > much as just hand routing them. That can happen, but there are also the Steerable-Shove routers. Not sure if you call those auto-routers or not ? They allow the operator to direct the path, and the router does the detail-maths. PADS has two of these. > > Either that or the PCB contractor wants more billable hours :-) That comes into it as well :) -jg
From: Guy Macon on 12 Apr 2008 03:18 Joseph H Allen wrote: >Actually that brings up another question: do people actually use >auto-routers anymore? If you run an autorouter, it puts down many traces exactly as you would have; straight runs between pads that are next to each other, etc. I run the autorouter, delete all the traces that aren't run the way I would have run them, and do my manual layout from there. this cuts the time needed to finish the job in half. If you do a good job of placing the parts and run the autorouter with the right design rules and let it rip-up-and retry overnight, it gets a surprisingly large percentage right, and even the nets that need to be routed manually often have the pins already swapped the way I would have done it. -- Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/>
From: Anton Erasmus on 12 Apr 2008 07:15 On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:40:16 +0000 (UTC), jhallen(a)TheWorld.com (Joseph H Allen) wrote: >In article <pOidnUGOS6oVsGfanZ2dnUVZ_ramnZ2d(a)giganews.com>, >Joel <joelbenway(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>Just curious about what everyone uses. I've been using Orcad PCB editor. > >PADS Power PCB 3.5.1 (version from around 2000) and started with PADS for >DOS. I would have started with DOS OrCAD PCB tool, but it was more >expensive than PADS at the time. I have the Specctra auto-router for it >(withdrawn when Cadence bought it). Never tried the Blaze auto-router. Oh, >I used this with DOS OrCAD and Viewdraw. > >I've since used Cadance tools: Allegro and Concept. They annoy me. > >Actually that brings up another question: do people actually use >auto-routers anymore? I used Specctra successfully on a bunch of PCB >projects. Everyone who uses Allegro seems to hand-route everything. >Perhaps the setup work to use the auto-router for high speed signals is as >much as just hand routing them. I use an old version of specctra. Before Cadence bought them out. Cadence has priced specctra so that only very big companies can afford it. The full router is in the order of US$100,000. I have used specctra with Tango PCB, Protel 98, Protel 99 and have tried it using the Altium evaluation version. Even the old version of specctra I have outperforms the latest router in Altium by a huge margin. One of the demo boards which they use to demonstrate the routing capabilities of Altium's auto router, routes in 8 layers using their router. This takes almost 2 hours on quite a fast PC. Specctra routes this board on 8 layers using the same design rules in less than 1 minute. It routes this same board on 2 layers in something like 8 minutes, still using the same set of design rules. The only other router I have seen that comes close to specctra's capabilities is the Electra router. This can be purchased at a reasonable cost. There is even a Linux version available. Can any of the open source packages use this router ? It uses exactely the same file format as specctra. AFAIK Pulsonix uses the Electra router. Regards Anton Erasmus
From: Leon on 12 Apr 2008 06:37 On 12 Apr, 02:40, jhal...(a)TheWorld.com (Joseph H Allen) wrote: > In article <pOidnUGOS6oVsGfanZ2dnUVZ_ramn...(a)giganews.com>, > > Joel <joelben...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >Just curious about what everyone uses. I've been using Orcad PCB editor. > > PADS Power PCB 3.5.1 (version from around 2000) and started with PADS for > DOS. I would have started with DOS OrCAD PCB tool, but it was more > expensive than PADS at the time. I have the Specctra auto-router for it > (withdrawn when Cadence bought it). Never tried the Blaze auto-router. Oh, > I used this with DOS OrCAD and Viewdraw. > > I've since used Cadance tools: Allegro and Concept. They annoy me. > > Actually that brings up another question: do people actually use > auto-routers anymore? I used Specctra successfully on a bunch of PCB > projects. Everyone who uses Allegro seems to hand-route everything. > Perhaps the setup work to use the auto-router for high speed signals is as > much as just hand routing them. > > Either that or the PCB contractor wants more billable hours :-) I sometimes use the Pulsonix autorouter, it does a very good job. I route the critical tracks manually, of course. Leon
From: David Brown on 12 Apr 2008 06:38
Anton Erasmus wrote: > On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:40:16 +0000 (UTC), jhallen(a)TheWorld.com (Joseph > H Allen) wrote: > >> In article <pOidnUGOS6oVsGfanZ2dnUVZ_ramnZ2d(a)giganews.com>, >> Joel <joelbenway(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>> Just curious about what everyone uses. I've been using Orcad PCB editor. >> PADS Power PCB 3.5.1 (version from around 2000) and started with PADS for >> DOS. I would have started with DOS OrCAD PCB tool, but it was more >> expensive than PADS at the time. I have the Specctra auto-router for it >> (withdrawn when Cadence bought it). Never tried the Blaze auto-router. Oh, >> I used this with DOS OrCAD and Viewdraw. >> >> I've since used Cadance tools: Allegro and Concept. They annoy me. >> >> Actually that brings up another question: do people actually use >> auto-routers anymore? I used Specctra successfully on a bunch of PCB >> projects. Everyone who uses Allegro seems to hand-route everything. >> Perhaps the setup work to use the auto-router for high speed signals is as >> much as just hand routing them. > > I use an old version of specctra. Before Cadence bought them out. > Cadence has priced specctra so that only very big companies can afford > it. The full router is in the order of US$100,000. I have used > specctra with Tango PCB, Protel 98, Protel 99 and have tried it using > the Altium evaluation version. Even the old version of specctra I have > outperforms the latest router in Altium by a huge margin. One of the > demo boards which they use to demonstrate the routing capabilities of > Altium's auto router, routes in 8 layers using their router. This > takes almost 2 hours on quite a fast PC. Specctra routes this board on > 8 layers using the same design rules in less than 1 minute. It routes > this same board on 2 layers in something like 8 minutes, still using > the same set of design rules. > The only other router I have seen that comes close to specctra's > capabilities is the Electra router. This can be purchased at a > reasonable cost. There is even a Linux version available. Can any of > the open source packages use this router ? It uses exactely the same > file format as specctra. > AFAIK Pulsonix uses the Electra router. > As I understand it, the reason Electra is similar to Specctra is that it is written by the guys that originally wrote Specctra, but didn't move to Cadence. So it works in a similar way, and will give similar results. It is not as flexible as Specctra, but good enough for the great majority of autorouting tasks, much faster, and *much* cheaper. We also have an old Specctra license, but I tested out Electra's demo version - when we look for a second autorouter license, it will be Electra. Electra/specctra (at least, the old Specctra that I have used) have a very rigid autorouting philosophy, running routes on 90 degree paths with alternate layers biased in alternate directions. That works well for quite a lot of boards, but can give poor results for some sorts of cards - it can be difficult to get it to route *round* an area or component, rather than *through* it. And for complex boards, you need to do a fair amount of work setting up your "do" file with commands to get routing to run as you want. But once that's done, run times are fast, and it's very easy to just rip it all up and redo your routing when you change the board, or re-arrange your components. For a completely different type of autorouting, have a look at these two links (I haven't tried them myself yet). http://www.freestyleteam.com/index.php?topic=topor&lang=en http://www.freerouting.net/ |