Software

[OLY29]

Ok the big question. The company I work for has about 25 engineers, about split between software and hardware. What is the best software for a compant this size to buy. I am talking schematic capture and layout. The schematic capture would be the largest and layout would only have 2-3 seats. The layout I am now working on is 6 layers with 1 432 pin BGA and multiple QFP's and parts on both sides. Also could you expand on the reason. Sorry to ask the big question, but I am interested in everyones answers.

[Tom]

We have about the same size company in the Wind River Services group San Diego. We currently use OrCAD for schematic Capture, but that is primarily because we are a services organization and need to be compatible with what our customers have. And it's just a coincidence that most of our customers use OrCAD Capture. I have to use a 3rd party tool to create ECO files to go between OrCAD and PowerPCB, but it's really easy.

If I had my choice I would switch to Viewdraw to get full integration. I like the idea of dual screen monitors and cross probing. I like forward and backward annotation and ECO generation. I like software tools that tightly integrate with each other. We did purchase 10 seats of Viewdraw a year ago, but it is called shelf ware around here. Our engineers tried to use it but said it was rather complicated and that they are waiting for PowerLogic and Viewdraw to merge together hoping it will make the program more user friendly.

We're located in Southern California. As far as a CAD software tool, there are over 1,500 companies from Long Beach to the end of San Diego that use PowerPCB. We use PowerPCB and have several seats and several PowerPCB Viewers for engineers. If we were in the bay area we might be using Cadence because that tool is really popular up there. But here in Southern Cal. PowerPCB is king. I'm the chairman of the local San Diego User Group and we get over 100 RSVP's for a meeting. There are plenty of PCB designers to select from and PowerPCB is easier to learn than Cadence or Mentor.

Here on pcbstandards.com there are plenty of free "High Quality" libraries and documentation for PowerPCB.

[randychase]

I would mostly echo what Tom said. For typical PCB layout, I would recommend PowerPCB.

If you did mainly Hybrid, Analog/RF or High Speed, I might consider other packages...depending on your budget.

I like both Orcad and PowerLogic for schematic capture, I don't have any experience with Viewdraw.

[OLY29]

Tom and Randy, The company that I used to work for ShareGate used Viewdraw and Pads. The schematic capture was very hard to create schematic symbols but the link between the two was very good except for back annotation. Some times it would not take and I had to do some quick work arounds to get it to work. The new company is using Orcad schematic capture and layout. I am hoping that I can change their minds to use Pads for layout. I would like to know what software you are using to run the ECO files between Orcad and Pads. This is what I am looking for to complete this transfer between Orcad and Pads. I have a friend in Portland using Cadence and working for Intel. He said it is a slow learning process. Anyway, thanks for the information.
Steve

[Tom]

The best way to get a clean netlist into PowerPCB using OrCAD as your Schematic Tool is by using "Netcheck Tools" as a 3rd party ECO generator. This is how it works....

You can manually bring parts into a design using the ECO Tool box.
You can manually place the parts.
You can use the ECO Tool box (route ICON) to route traces (differential pairs in your case) to unconnected pins. This will create a netlist with net names like $$$1, $$$2, etc.
You can create a PowerPCB netlist using File/Report/PowerPCB V3.0 Netlist
You can export the OrCAD Netlist using the PowerPCB V3 or V4 Netlister DLL file.
You can then compare the two netlists in Netcheck Tools and it will create an ECO file. When you File/Import the ECO file, it will modify the PowerPCB database to match the OrCAD netlist.
Netcheck Tools will perform the following features:
1. It will automatically rename your original PowerPCB net names from $$$1, $$$2, etc. to the OrCAD net name.
2. It will Import any parts that you did not manually place.
It will update every decal to the decal name that is assigned in the OrCAD Symbol.
3. It will completely update the PowerPCB netlist, leaving the entire manual routing in place (if the two netlists match pin for pin).
4. It will delete any part that is in the design but not in the schematic. So if you put Mounting Holes to GND you have to add the Mounting Holes to your schematic. Fiducials will not be deleted because they are not a netlist item.
5. The great thing is that Netcheck Tools produces a Human Readable Report and an ECO file so you can check the differences prior to importing your netlist.
6. Netcheck Tools will retain the paths of both your netlists in the program so you can run the program over and over again within seconds.
7. It also works as a netlist translator so you can compare 25 different format netlists. Actually any netlist format in the world. Including FutureNet (can you believe that!). You can actually translate any netlist format to any other netlist format.
8. It also works as a netlist comparison tool for final netlist verification match.
We use Netcheck Tools every day, sometimes several times a day. It's a safe product that will not destroy the hard work that you manually performed.
When you contact CADPRO Systems - 858.695.9900 ask for the free 30 day Netcheck Tools evaluation. They will require an e-mail address to send you the download URL and the "Password" to turn on the 30-day trial. I like to test drive the product before I lay down the bucks.
Buy it once (there's no need for yearly maintenance, ours has worked forever) and use it a thousand times. That's a good ROI.

[Mark Larson]

PCB Navigator will also pass a netlist from Orcad to PowerPCB. It allows cross probing and forward and back annotating. If you go that route you should have 3 monitors. Some people rave about the spreadsheet interface of PCB Navigator, others hate it. I'm sort of in the middle about that, the spreadsheet is nice but on a large board there is one whole lot of info to edit.

PowerLogic with PPCB is the way to go if all you are doing is schematic entry to pass a netlist and rules to PPCB. It is the simplest and slickest way to cross probe, forward and back annotate with PPCB.

ViewDraw will work just as well, but it's a little more complicated at first than either Orcad or PowerLogic. The difficulties your people had with it are quickly overcome once it is learned, they will eventually love it, creating decals is simple, especially with the wizard. The heirarchal abilities blows the other 2 out of the water.

I've used all 3 and ViewDraw would be my choice. If you ever get around to wanting to get up and running on ViewDraw and also need a PCB Cad jockey, Ilet me know. I still have the training material I developed and used at another company, it would only need minor editting to get it current. I'm not looking for a job now, but nothing is permanent.

[Tom]

I agree with Mark on Viewdraw. It's the best choice of the other schematic tools. It has High Speed rule sets that can be imported directly into PowerPCB. The new BlazeRouter and FIRE router (Fast Interactive Route Editor) and quickly passing rules through make this the future choice for "Best Bang for the Buck". Viewdraw can be improved to make its interface (user friendliness) better, but once you get used to using it you can't go back (from what I hear).

I've learned through the "School of Hard Knocks" that you need a product champion on your staff. That will make or break a successful situation (installation). That is the major reason why Wind River has not implemented the use of our 10 Seats yet. We do not have a Viewdraw Product Champion to ask all our questions (every 5 minutes). But someday we will.

[Mark Larson]

The nice thing about PowerLogic and design rules is that the user interface is exactly the same as the UI for Blaze and PowerPCB and is accessed from the same menu. Also you can forward and back annotate the rules via the OLE Link.Whicxh by the way is the preferred method over the ASCII I/O method. Primarily due to error checking, the OLE method does a much better job of error checking and prompting the user for correction or warning, ASCII I/O does not do this. Currently only Nets and classes are supported in VBA in case you want to write your own scripts. The downside is that pin pair and pin pair group rules cannot be specified in PowerLogic. Does anybody know if they can in ViewDraw? I do not use these rules currently because they wreck havoc with length minimization (and the fact they cannot be in the schematic which then requires manual updating these rules the next board turn).
The only things I can think of right now where PowerLogic excells over ViewDraw is the similar UI to PowerPCB and the VB capability and similar VBA to PowerPCB. Otherwise ViewDraw can do everything and more. They both have pretty much the smae forward/back annotate and cross probing.
That said, Orcad has it as well, but it is much more cumbersome with the 3rd party.

[Lameris]

Tom,

High Speed rules from Viewdraw actually works? Did the salesman tell you this or do you know a customer using it?

Heck, I can't even get Unions to work from Viewdraw and they were advertised to work since PowerPCB 1.6...

Regarding rules, the interface is getting better, you can actually drive the rules to PowerPCB the first time. Beware of backannotating the rules, that doesn't quite work right... It's a good way to mess up a perfectly good schematic. Improvements to the rules, and how to get them right on the schematic are supposed to be implemented in EPD 3.0

There are many features I like in Viewdraw. DxDatabook significatly improved our productivity and increased the chance to get the PCB right. Symbols are date stamped and "alias's*" have been supported for a long time. (PowerPCB needs date stamping and Alias's) Heirarchy works great, except for numbering pages, and an attribute is needed so that heirarchical symbols aren't checked against DxDatabook. DxPDF shows promise of being a great method to publish schematics. Symbols and schematics are both saved in an ASCII format that allows easy modifications through scripts or text editors.

I've used Viewdraw for 15 years. I still have a working DOS Viewdraw station running 4.1. It can open up todays schematics, though you do miss a couple of features. Font support is poor, but how many fonts does one need on a schematic. Since Innoveda has been around, they have vastly improved the product and they are at least attempting to fix most of the short comings.

We have an active group dedicated to Viewdraw at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/innoveda_users/
(the ads are getting a bit painful, but it has a lot of content and features)

*An alias is the ability to specifically pick out the 74hc02 from the approved library instead of the first 74hc02 found in the search path.

[Tom]

Gary,

Yes, it was the Innoveda sales person that told Wind River that Viewdraw can pass High Speed Rules to PowerPCB and that the new V5.0 Fire / BlazeRouter would be able to route to those rules and PowerPCB would verify that all the rules were achieved or met.

One of the major deciding factors that Wind River Systems based the decision to purchase Viewdraw was the passing of High Speed Rules from Viewdraw to PowerPCB. That was one of the primary reasons for the purchase.

I don''t know about you, but our engineers work like this. They whip a schematic together with all the basic components and connections. Then they give us a netlist so we can spend a week or two on the part placement while they work in parallel preparing all the High Speed Rules. Of course they do give us a good block diagram that illustrates the High Speed stuff to aid the placement. After we enter all the High Speed Rules (manually into PowerPCB) we start routing traces for the next four weeks. During that time the engineers are constantly providing new or modifided design rules.

We are waiting for the day when Innoveda has an integrated tool set where we can continuously pass rules back and forth daily (hourly) with all the checks and balances of seamless integration. When that happens, look out because we will open up those 10 seats of Viewdraw and start production.

[Carl_at_xrite]

Tom,Gary,
There is a spread sheet constraints manager for high speed design rules in viewdraw.
We dont have the license for this but you can enter attributes for each net directly in the schematic such as width, impedance capacitance etc.
this information does come over to pads unfortunately I have yet to see pads adhere to any high speed design rules.
Carl

[Lameris]

Tom, it works the first time now... (of course you have to import it into a new PCB not one where you already preplaced the parts) And, if you really wanted to use it, your engineers would probably quit first.

It is extremely difficult to get all the spellings right on the attributes that you have to attach to a net. This is where constraint manager may help (where is the description of this product on the web page?) and I understand portions of it are being rolled into EPD3...

I find attributes and their management are a nightmare. Everything has to be perfect or the tools crash. (If you have 2 different variations of a Viewdraw symbol, the attributes and their values must be identical or the PCB forward crashes) Trying to syncronize rules and attributes is a killer. For examples, are the units metric, default, mils, inch, etc... I find net width rules that got backannotated, by accident, all the time with weird ass values because the units were wrong...

[Tom]

Thanks for the info. I think you're right about the fact that many of our engineers would quit their job before switching to Viewdraw. At least in the condition that it's in right now. We have to continue to hammer Innoveda to improve Viewdraw. We need to rally all the Viewdraw users to report their hardships and feature enhancements. I hear that is really hard to do because of the history of the Viewdraw product line and the mentality of all the people who are involved with the product from sales and marketing to the software engineers. It seems that they do not or cannot take customer suggestions and recommendations. They are above all that. They think that they know what we need better than we know what we need.

What we need is a user friendly, easy to use, easy to learn schematic tool that can pass High Speed rules back and forth. It needs to be intuitive enough to know if the command syntax is incorrect and offer solutions, like spell checker does. We need a totally integrated solution for our hardware development and I hope that Innoveda can deliver that someday.

[Lameris]

To be honest, since aquiring PADS, Innoveda has developed Viewdraw far more than it was developed in the past.

I was starting to look around at other schematic tools, but with the recent developments, and Innoveda finally getting feedback from users, it is shaping up to be a GREAT schematic editor.

With the pcbstandards libary, and our corporate Viewdraw symbol library and attribute database (DxDatabook), our first PCB accuracy and productivity has improved 300%.