Zuken unveils latest design tool suite

Electronic News, March 24, 1997 by Judy Erkanat

Santa Clara, Calif.--Zuken-Redac, Inc. came out with Visula 4.1 and CADStar for Windows 2.3, last week, besides signing an OEM agreement with Advanced CAM Technologies Inc. (ACT).

The latest release of Visula, Zuken's high-end, Unix-based, integrated suite of design tools for complex printed circuit board/multichip module (PCB/MCM) design and manufacture, Visula 4.1's highlights include PCB productivity tools; CAM tools; improved integration; a new library checker; and IPC library updates.

"Visula's design partitioning methodology allows a number of designers to work in parallel on the same design and ensures that any conflicts between the separate designs are reduced to a minimum when created with compatible technology and design rules," explained Don Frank, Zuken's U.S. director of marketing. "It also ensures that the circuit description maintains an exact match with the original logical design."

Enhanced rule books for manufacturing and high-speed circuit design are now available with Visula's design adviser analysis suite. Design adviser performs rules-based analysis under the total control of the designer, who also controls the design parameters.

Design for manufacturability includes the DFX documentor; and a sequence editor and enhanced productivity tools. Full integration between the system designer design entry tool and Visula PCB is now available on Unix, and Windows NT and 95. It includes forward and backward annotation using the RINF standard; cross probing between tools; and a Vision library to system designer conversion.

Since Zuken-Redac is a member of Mentor Graphics' OpenDoor program, Visula 4.1 includes an update of the Visula integration with Mentor's Falcon Framework and design entry tools. The integration now supports Mentor's B.2 release.

Visula's library checker provides a complete library utility package and a new IPC782 package library. The checker checks library integrity; provides graphical user interface or batch mode operation; validates user-defined tables; checks that company standards are retained; and has user-configurable checks. The new library adds the IPC standard for packages and symbols. The 690 packages and 345 binary PCB symbols can be added without modification to the standard Visula central database. A data-merge tool adds database information and binary symbols to company libraries.

Visula PCB design systems are priced from $30,000.

CADStar for Windows 2.3 introduces a new graphical library editor showing parts, symbols and component footprints on screen; unlimited undo/redo on all applications; advanced user interface ergonomics across applications; and a native OrCAD netlist import with full engineering change order (ECO) and design comparison facilities.

Within CADStar, a multi-level undo/redo capability ensures that at any stage of the layout process, previous iterations of a design can be easily recovered without having to access previously-stored designs. With a switch to make a selection between undo by item and undo by option, CADStar allows fine control of the new capability.

A new graphical parts library editor allows the creation or editing of parts without a text file or external text editor. Because it is part of CADStar, parts can be created while using the design applications and symbol creation options.

With a new user interface, the editor displays all associated part, symbol and component details in one window. By using the tab dialogues, further complex part details are revealed if required. Gate and pin swapping information is shown graphically using a tree structure, while attributes and common part body data are displayed in a grid matrix.

New and updated libraries with more than 14,000 parts and equivalent symbols for schematic and PCB are supplied, and the IPC782 standard PCB footprint library is also delivered as part of the standard product. Copy to clipboard was added so areas of a PCB layout or schematic design can be pasted into any documentation system or word processor. OrCAD netlists can be imported into the editor without any pre-formatting. With the same process, ECO updates and design comparisons can also take place during the design cycle.

Shipping this month, CADStar design viewer pricing ranges from $600 for a single seat to more than $6,000 for a site license. Route Editor 2000 Elite is priced from $14,250.

The OEM agreement with ACT, effective immediately, gives Zuken the right to supply ACT's CAM350 Unix product family with Zuken's Visula design tools.

"Using the CAM350 suite of PCB CAM tools, designers using Visula will be able to check, verify, and edit design data prior to manufacturing, therefore avoiding costly wastage at the fabrication stage," said Mr. Frank.

Zuken, claiming a 24 percent market share, also disseminated market results published by Dataquest. Zuken said the data confirmed its number one position in the worldwide PCB/MCM software market for the third year in a row. Dataquest reported 1996's PCB/MCM software revenues grew by 8.4 percent over 1995, to $293 million. During the same time, Zuken's revenues increased by 19 percent, a growth rate double that of the industry.