Zuken-Redac launches tools; inks deal

Electronic News, July 8, 1996

Santa Clara, Calif.--Zuken-Redac introduced System Designer schematic capture for printed circuit board (PCB) design, launched Sequence Editor for PCB and multichip module (MCM) design and signed an agreement with UniCAD to distribute UniCAD's UniSolve products.

System Designer integrates with Zuken-Redac's PCB and MCM layout tools to support automatic avoidance routing, multiple cut/copy/paste buffers, unlimited undo/redo functions and user-defined macros.

Available on Unix workstations and Windows NT or 95, the package supports both generic and parts-based design. Generic symbols can be added to the design and given specific part properties later in the design cycle, allowing the circuit design and simulation to continue under "what if" analysis before the component is added to the corporate parts library. Parts-based methodology allows downstream processes to start earlier and properties to be added to all design items within System Designer.

System Designer also supports multi-sheet and hierarchical design, allowing common modules to be multiply instanced within the same design or shared between different ones. It supports top-down and bottom-up hierarchy design and the hierarchical topology of the schematic can be used in layout.

Components are automatically associated to floorplan areas according to their location in the hierarchy. Design partitioning enables flat designs to be partitioned into blocks, while sub-circuits added as hierarchical blocks can be de-instanced to produce a single flat schematic.

Available in 4Q96, System Designer sells from $5,000.

The Sequence Editor tool for upstream analysis and optimization of PCB and MCM design for automated manufacture is integrated in the Visula system for a graphical, auto/interactive environment for the evaluation, optimization and generation of automatic assembly programs and related machine setups early in the design flow.

The product's capabilities cover the analysis of insertion sequence, evaluation of the number of head and bank changes, as well as the calculation of magazine changes. Sequence Editor will ship 2Q96, with prices starting at $18,000.

Zuken-Redac's agreement with UniCAD to sell UniSolve products is worldwide in scope and links UniSolve with Zuken-Redac's CAD system, Visula. Further integration of UniCAD/Zuken-Redac products is under consideration. The agreement was effective June 1.