PCB parley: return CAD tools to engineer

Electronic News, March 25, 1996 by Judy Erkanat

Santa Clara, Calif.--Concurrent design was the password as vendors at the PCB Design Conference here last week rushed to put CAD tools back in the hands of the electrical engineer.

The focus of that push being bringing more meaningful decisions to engineering design meetings and giving engineers the ability to manage and control the design process rather than leaving it with myriad specialists.

Although some said the products put forth at the conference were only small steps toward satisfying an inevitable industry requirement, no one could deny they were plentiful and comprehensive.

When MicroSim Corp. of Irvine, Calif., asked, "Who does PCB layout?," the answer gave 32 percent of the layout pie to engineers; a segment significantly larger than previously thought. Putting the engineer back into the design flow lowers the total design cost and gives better circuit performance, MicroSim asserted.

Hence the introduction of MicroSim Schematics (see Design Software, page 28) and MicroSim PCBoards for Windows 95, NT, and 3.1. Design engineers can use the new printed circuit board (PCB) layout package as a stand-alone product or integrated with the entire suite of MicroSim products.

"Within the next three years, the PCB segment of the EDA industry will move to the next stage of its evolution," said Wolfram Blume, MicroSim president and founder. "Vendors today introducing PCB layout tools that are in tune with the trends toward more integrated design cycles, will find a future robust PCB market with more integration between front-end design and back-end layout."

New features in PCBoards for Windows include graphical error traceback with context-sensitive help. Shipping April 8, the product goes for an introductory price of $1,495 (U.S.) and $1,945 (international).

Calling its products the first physical synthesis tools, Harris EDA of Fishers, N.Y., announced EDAvalidator and EDAnavigator for Windows, said to enhance existing CAE and CAD tools on Windows platforms.

EDAvalidator plugs into current design environments to complement tools from Cadence, PADS, P-CAD, VeriBest and Viewlogic. The software provides schematic-to-CAD-to-BOM verification and ECO management.

EDAnavigator bridges the gap between logical and physical design, providing a common tool set for electrical engineers and layout designers for floorplanning, partitioning and placement; managing conflicting design constraints; and achieving maximum performance and manufacturability with fewer design iterations.

"EDAnavigator allows engineers and designers to optimize partitioning, part selection, and placement decisions with fewer iterations, no matter what their exiting design tools or platforms."Stephen Taft, CAE market manager for Harris EDA, said.

Both products integrate Viewlogic's schematic entry tools, ViewDraw and ProCapture, with VeriBest Design Capture, Cadence Allegro, PADS-Perform, and Accel P-CAD tools. Available now, pricing for EDAvalidator starts at $10,000, with EDAnavigator for Windows beginning at $3,500.

Beaverton, Ore.-based OrCAD announced the licensing of new autorouting technology from NeuroCad of Harvard, Mass., from which OrCAD acquired the source code for NeuroRoute NR200, a gridless, shape-based autorouter with 'native intelligence.'

The technology is designed to decrease the incidence of crosstalk and improve manufacturability of the routed boards, reducing overall design cycle time. The business transaction represents a source code licensing agreement between the two companies only, and NeuroCad will continue to sell NeuroRoute NR200 as a stand-alone autorouter and through its existing OEM agreements.

This acquisition led to new 7.0 releases of OrCAD Layout Plus, Layout, and Layout Ltd. for OrCAD Design Desktop for Windows. The products include gridless, shape-based autorouter, CAM capabilities, a 3,000-footprint library with complete documentation and interactive polar placement sport for circular boards.

"Both shape-based autorouting and CAM represent areas where cost has been a significant barrier to widespread adoption. Inclusion of these features in our affordable products means OrCAD is creating a new value point," Jim Plymale, OrCAD's marketing VP, said.

All available June 30, Layout Plus for Windows is priced at $10,995, Layout for Windows is $5,995 and Layout Ltd. for Windows is $1,995, all U.S. prices. Special upgrade prices are available for owners of OrCAD Layout Plus, Layout, and Layout Ltd., and OrCAD PCB 386+.

Also scheduled for late June delivery, Westford, Mass.-based UniCAD, Inc.'s concurrent analysis tools, SyntheSolve and UniSolve running on Windows NT, debuted at the conference. SyntheSolve, helps design engineers reduce layout-to-analysis iterations, reducing iterations from the traditional passing of data from engineer to CAD designer.

The UniSolve CAA tool set provides concurrent engineering analysis by automatically computing the impact a design decision in one area could have on another.

SyntheSolve is priced at $140,000. The UniSolve Desktop tool is $19,500 and SyntheSolve Desktop is $29,500. A complete bundle of all five UniSolve modules is $59,000, with individual Signal Integrity, Emissions, Thermal, Reliability, or RF/IF modules going for $17,000 each. All products are shipping 2Q96.