PCB design software big analysis, which one is your dish?

After years of development, continuous modification and improvement of PCB (Printed Circuit Board) design software, or the existence of the inferior, or mergers and acquisitions, or strong alliance, only Cadence and Mentor are left alone.

Cadence's SPB (Silicon Package Board) series, the schematic tool uses Orcad CIS or Co ncept HDL, and the PCB Layout uses Allegro. "

Mentor has three series of PCB design tools: Mentor EN series, Mentor Board Station; Mentor WG series, Mentor Expedition; and PADS series, PowerPCB.

In addition, Altium's Protel also has many college users.

So, how do beginners choose a tool that suits them from the many PCB design tools?

One of the most realistic criteria for measuring the pros and cons of a software is its market share, which is its popularity and popularity. The Protel series has courses in many colleges and universities. There are still many users for college teachers and students, but I have to admit that Protel is one of the lowest-end software in the PCB software family, so few companies use it. Mentor PADS, also known as the PowerPCB/PowerLogic series, is the best of the low-end PCB software. Its interface is friendly, easy to use, and powerful. It is favored by small and medium-sized enterprises. Market share; Cadence Allegro, Mentor EN and Mentor WG are the most high-end PCB software. Large companies such as ZTE and Huawei use these high-end design software; among them, Cadence Allegro now seems to be the actual industry in high-speed board design. Standard, its learning resources are also rich, more suitable for self-study; Mentor Expedition is the smoothest software for pulling the line, known as the king of the cable, its automatic routing function is very powerful, the wiring rules are very professional design; Mentor EN series is from the early stage The UNIX system is ported to the Windows system and is the most professional PCB tool software, but its

Therefore, for beginners, if it is for the needs of the company, there is no contradiction in choice, what tools the company uses, and of course what tools to learn. If it is your own learning needs, we recommend you choose Cadence Allegro or PADS.

Cadence products

Cadence's products have changed rapidly in recent years. There are many series of Orcad/SPB/PSD. Many beginners will wonder what Orcad is, what is SPB and PSD? In fact, all three are Cadence's PCB design kit based on capture and allegro, the only difference is the software configuration. Orcad's configuration is a low-end product, which has the advantage of low price, but in Orcad, Allegro's function is weak, only basic functions and no co nstrain manager. If SI or co nstrain manager is needed, additional configuration is required. It is. PSD and SPB are actually the same thing. PSD is an early version of the Allegro system interconnect design platform. Later, the new version was called SPB. Because the design concept was improved, the name of the package was modified. So everyone understands that SPB is the most fully functional version of Allegro.

One of the most realistic criteria for measuring the pros and cons of a software is its market share, which is its popularity and popularity. Cadence Allegro now seems to be the de facto industry standard in high-speed board design. It has been adopted by many large-scale electronic communication companies. Therefore, Cadence Allegro has a substantial help in job hunting. In addition, it has rich learning resources and is more suitable for self-study. Now Cadence's range of products are:

Cadence SPB16.2, Cadence SPB16.0, Cadence SPB 15.7, Cadence SPB15.5, Cadence SPB15.2, etc.

Board level circuit design system:

Including schematic input, generation, analog digital / hybrid circuit simulation, fpga design, pcb editing and automatic placement and routing mcm circuit design, high-speed pcb layout design simulation and so on. include:

* Co ncept HDL schematic design input tool for products for NT and for Unix.

* Check Plus HDL schematic design rule checking tool. (NT & Unix)

* SPECTRA Quest Engineer PCB Layout Planning Tool (NT & Unix)

* Allegro Expert Expert PCB Layout Editing Tool (NT & Unix)

* SPECTRA Expert AutoRouter expert pcb automatic routing tool

* SigNoise signal to noise analysis tool

* EMCo ntrol electromagnetic compatibility check tool

* Synplify FPGA / CPLD synthesis tool

* HDL Analyst HDL Analyzer

* Advanced Package Designer advanced MCM package design tool

Dr. Yu once said: "The actual industry standard in Cadence high-speed board design. No matter which aspect is super cattle. Cadence PCB Layout tool is absolutely first-class, after a little familiar with it, no longer want to use other tools, wiring is super cool. The simulation aspect is also very cattle, with its own simulation tools, signal integrity simulation, power integrity simulation can do. It is firmly in the dominance of doing pcb high-speed board. To know 60% of the world's computer motherboard 40 % of the phone motherboards are all painted by Allegro."

Mentor products

(Mingdao International Electrical Design Software)

(1) Mentor EN2004

Mentor EN, Mentor Board Station, is a schematic and PCB design software from Mentor Graphics that supports both Unix and Windows systems (Win2000 and Win XP); EN is short for Enterprise, and many large IT companies such as Intel Lucent, Flextronics, Siemens, and Waveguide all use Mentor EN for PCB design. There are not many engineers working on Mentor EN in China, so hardware engineers and PCB layout engineers who are familiar with Mentor EN generally have good treatment.

(2) Mentor WG2005

Mentor WG, Mentor Expedition, is a high-end PCB design tool based on the Windows interface introduced by Mentor Graphics.

The Mentor DxDesigner and Expedition design flow is the schematic and PCB design design flow now recommended by Mentor Graphics. In the Mentor Expedition 2005 release, Mentor Expedition 2005 (Mentor WG2005) and Mentor WG2005 have been integrated.

Mentor DxDesigner is a schematic input tool from Mentor Graphics. It is an upgraded version of the schematic tool ViewDraw. It is powerful and user-friendly. It can support a variety of PCB Layout tools such as Mentor Expedition, Mentor Board Station, PowerPCB, Cadence Allegro. , and Zuken et al. The installation of DxDesigner requires two installations of Mentor ePD2004 and Mentor SDD.

Mentor DxDesigner + Mentor WG2005 ( Mentor Expedition 2005) is the schematic to PCB design flow.

(3) Mentor PADS

PowerLogic 5.0 and PowerPCB 5.0 schematic and PCB design software are widely used because of their friendly interface and ease of use. After being acquired by Mentor Graphics, PowerLogic and PowerPCB products were renamed PADS series, and versions include PADS2005 and PADS2007, including: Principle Figure tool PADS Logic, PCB tool PADS Layout and automatic routing tool PADS Router. PADS is suitable for the needs of most small and medium-sized businesses. It does not have its own simulation. When doing high-speed boards, it must be combined with other special simulation tools, such as hyperlynx.

Large company usage

Intel Concept+Allegro+ SpecctraQuest

Part of the Dell viewdraw+ Allegro + SQ schematic is Capture

Huawei viewdraw+ Allegro + SpecctraQuest

ZTE Concept+Allegro+ SpecctraQuest

UT Concept+Allegro+ SpecctraQuest mobile phone department uses POWERPCB

Csico Concept+Allegro+ SpecctraQuest

Hp Concept+Allegro+ SpecctraQuest from Boardstation to Alllegro Process

Moto Concept+Allegro+ SpecctraQuest from Boardstation to Alllegro Process