Comparison between MG Board Station & CADENCE PCB Designer

[ritu_arora]

Comparison between Mentor Graphics Board Station and CADENCE Allegro PCB Designer

 

[praveenlb]

Hi both are very good software . but some of the company will use Mentor Graphics. while doing SI Mentor is best..while designing Allegro PCB designer is bit user friendly.

 

[ritu_arora]

Hi both are very good software . but some of the company will use Mentor Graphics. while doing SI Mentor is best..while designing Allegro PCB designer is bit user friendly.

Thanks Praveen!
What are the various modules of Allegro PCB Designer?
like for Schematic Entry it is "Design Capture CIS"
for Placement & Routing, what are the names of modules that are used?

 

[praveenlb]

In allegro we use PCB editor..here many sub class is there..pcb editor GXL, XL, so on..in we use Mentor graphics DX designer for schematic and expedition pcb for layout.

 

[kj.singh]

It depends very much on the level of design complexity. In case of a complex design you need an advanced constraint manager and always Mentor SI Hyperlynx supports Cadence designs too.
If you are doing a very basic design then any other tool like Altium, Pads will also be good. They are economical comparatively and capable of doing most designs.

 

[marce]

I disagree, as well as hate these PCB packages comparisons.
I have used numerous packages in the past and have managed to lay boards out exactly the same on the follwoing packages:
Cadstar
Allegro
Pads
Altium
and collegues here have done the same sort of boards on boardsataion.
So any package from the top four Cadence, Zuken, Mentor, Altium will allow you to do any board you want to design, the only difference will be user interface and cost, and here I am talking about high speed, constraint driven, FPGA's, DDR memory, gigabit ethernet blah blah blah. If you go down a technolgy step, then just about any PCB design package will allow you to join the dots.
The only way to determine what is best for yourself is to try the software.

 

[kj.singh]

Well, it difinitely helps saving time with a simple tool to match the design requirement.
-kjs

 

[marce]

All tools can be as simple or as complex as you want these days, what you will find is some programs are over complex for the simple jobs. Further PCB design is not simple these days.