Which PCB tool to choose?

[flaxa]

Well I work with OrCAD Capture and Layout, mainly for 4-layer designs,
manually routed.
BTW what is wrong with Layout?

flaxa\]

 

[Uky]

I can answer flaxa. If the OrCAD Layout tool is used for complex designs using micro vias, we found (the VERY hard way) that the layout database started to loose integrity once the file size got close to 1.5 MByte. Vias started to disappear or we got multiple vias in the same location. Having lost time and $$$ we switched to Allegro (Cadence has an OrCAD Layout-->Allegro Converter). Never had any problems since.

 

[Anaxetus]

I have trouble understanding different tool names.
Can someone please, explain which tool is part of which one? That is, Allegro, OrCad, Cadence are part of the same suit? In their web pages, they look as different product.

 

[arci]

anybody know where can be downloeded pads2004 pic library

 

[sinatra]

Re: Which PCB tool to choose? Choose KICAD!

There is finally an alternative that is free and as good or better than the professional tools available.

This tool is KICAD.

It was developped by prof. Jean-Pierre Charras at LIS (Laboratoire des Images et des Signaux) in France.

It is multiplatform (Linux and Windows), multilingual (french, english, spanish, portuguese). Developped using GCC (Mingw) and Wxwidgets.

To see how powerful it is just take a look in the example "video.pro" in the demos directory.

It is as professional as any other commercial tool available (project manager, schematics, pcb, gerber viewer, 3d viewer, netlist generation for spice, autorouter, etc...). And you don't need licenses to be able to work. It is just free.

The source code is also available.

You can find it at:
**broken link removed**

Give it a try.

S.

 

[Singapura]

KiCAD is quite a decent piece of free EDA software, but it does not have an autorouter and supports up to 16 layers only.

Good for those who can't afford commercial product price but who wishes to start out and learn the ropes of EDA tools.

 

[MA.SHERIFF]

hello
Your problem may be solved if you use VISULA Layout Edit or CADStar:|
The later one is much coastlier than the latter

 

[eng_ahmed22]

P-CAD is good, my company use it
and PCB engineers sayes that it is good
try it out

thanks
ams

 

[danda821]

Mentor Expedition is good.

 

[node]

Have you pick

**broken link removed**

Node

 

[iffee]

Diptrace 1.21.r5 is very nice and free for PCBs upto 250 pins

 

[wizpic]

Why some people say Protel is rubbish i find it very good infact it's shit-hot the best one i have ever used well that's my 2 pennies worth any way.
i've used protel now for about 2years
i did find protel 99se crap

wizpic

 

[tux]

Two things to be considered while choosing the tool
1. How fast u want the work done.
2. Price.
if price i not the problem the best tool is cadence.
if u choose cadence, it is like working in a text editor
pcb editing is very good and more control on layout

 

[fanglifeng]

zuken cr5000 is good!

 

[gliss]

Hehe, the best. Mentor or Cadence.

 

[sidir]

I am also curious about this issue.

Many big guys said it depends on what designs to carry out. Are there any quantitative measurements?

For example, Mentor's Expedition and Cadence's Allegro prefer the designs of circuits higher than 200 MHz, and with layers more than 16?

 

[newbiebk]

i think, Orcad or Protel is the best tool

 

[fanglifeng]

CR5000 is also a good choice.

 

[BigBoss]

I'd prefer to use Cadence SPB within a team. It's quite difficult to use but powerful..

 

[agha]

Hi
I think u better to start with Cadence Allegro. It is some difficult but very nice with useful fascilities.
It can be used for up to 100 layers board.