Time required to design PCBs

[buenos]

hi.

how much time does it take for you guys, to design different PCBs, with different Layout tools?

For example for me, with Altium Designer:
-x86 motherboard with 2 BGAs, 1100 components, 8-layers, high-speed DDR-400MHz-DIMM... took 2-3 months.
-ARM9 board with 400 components, 4-layers, SDRAM-80MHz... took 3-4 weeks.


Now, I am checking the Cadence Allegro. It seems things what took 0.5...1 seconds in the Altium, it takes several seconds in the Allegro. Like zooming to an area, what I want to see, and exactly there, or modifying a trace... And its so hard to make simple things.
So, I guess my 2-3 months design would take 6-9 months with Allegro?

 

[chucka]

If you are a one man show and have to build all your own parts, footprints, padstacks, schematics design files, constraints, etc ... then 2 to 3 months is awsome for an 8 layer mother board.

By the way, what ARM 9 chip are you using. I am writing a whole suite of Linux device drivers for the ARM 9.

 

[buenos]

atmel AT91RM9200 microcontroller (180MHz, 208pin). My colleague, the software-guy was working on the linux and drivers... almost one year ago.

for the motherboard, the sschematics was about 2 months extra, so 4-5 months for sch+pcb

 

[difflvl]

Buenos if possible can you post a "smartpdf" to show pcb design complexity? I have yet to do a "large" design in altium and am curious to see one.

 

[buenos]

sorry, but these are products of the company where i work. so i can not provide any smart PDFs here.

I made a hobby project some time ago, and its available on a blacjfin-linux portal:
http://blackfin.uclinux.org/gf/project/bbboard/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=86


could anyone write here about his own projects? time to design...

 

[buenos]

noone is designing PCBs here?

complexity - tool used - time required

 

[folks]

Eagle
-str755-TQFP (arm7) with 2-bga, 5 ssop, 200 components, 2 layers, manual routing. = 2 weeks

 

[Schallhofer]

Allegro 15.5.1:
20 Layer > 6 Datalayer;
Package Symbols: 2358
Pins: 19141
Padstack Definitions: 216
Already Connected: 15611
Missing Connections: 0
Number of Vias: 17647
Voltages: 32

2 men show in TEAM DESIGN > 6 Month

 

[cyberrat]

Designing a board all depends upon the complexity of the board, the accuracy of the design spec & schematic & BOM, the weather, how you feel, your moral, how your company works & how often sales come & ask for a little change (that is actually a big one) & how often purchasing turn round & tell you that your using an obsolete part because they cannot get it except for a 6 months leadtime.

Me, I wet my finger, stick it inthe air & say "about a couple of weeks unninterupted". It might still last several months though

 

[buenos]

thanx for the 2 useful examples.
if anyone else can write more, we will welcome the posts.

cyberrat: of course time depends on lots of things, but even then we can make some comparison... i am mostly interested in the comparison between design sotware for required design time.