Analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of EDA tools in various products
EDA tools are emerging one after another. EDA software that has entered China and has wide impact is: EWB, PSPICE, OrCAD, PCAD, Protel, ViewLogic, Mentor, Graphics, Synopsys, LSIlogic, Cadence, MicroSim, etc. These tools have strong functions and can be used in several aspects. For example, many software can be used for circuit design and simulation. At the same time, PCB automatic layout and routing can be performed, and various netlist files can be outputted with third-party software interfaces.
In the forum, you can often see the classic questions of novices: Which drawing tool should I learn? Which drawing tool is more powerful? Which drawing tool is better? The online information about the various tool functions is a lot of information, and the EDA tool itself contains many versions and tools for independent functions. It is inevitable for beginners to be at a loss.
In recent years, EDA has carried out dazzling integration and mergers, and large companies have frequently acquired small companies with potential. Market concentration is getting higher and higher. Mentor and Cadence, many of our common EDA design tools come from both companies. In addition to these two large companies, tools from companies such as AlTIum, Zuken and CadSoft are often seen. Below we will come to understand the products of each company.
Mentor's PCB design tools are probably the most complex and complex among companies. In recent years, Mentor has been continuously optimizing and integrating its own product line, forming a gradually clear product line.
(1) The PADS series is an upgraded product after the acquisition of the original PowerPCB. The schematic tool is PADS logic, the PCB tool is PADS layout, the automatic wiring tool is PADS router, and the package library making tool is LP wizard. PADS series tools are simple and easy to use, quick to get started, flexible in design, and the user's freedom is very high. high. It has a high market share among domestic low-end customers. The most intimate is that the new version of the PADS series of tools has launched the official Chinese version, which is rare in the EDA tools, fully aware of the importance attached to the Chinese market. The only thing to emphasize is the package library tool LP Wizard. As long as it is a standard package, it can automatically generate a package library with this tool. It not only supports Mentor's own tools, but also supports other tools. Highly recommended to reduce the risk of our database building errors.
(2) The Hyperlynx series is a well-known simulation tool series from Mentor. Hyperlynx itself contains many parts that can perform different simulation requirements such as signal integrity, power integrity, DRC checking, thermal simulation, and simulation. Although there may be a gap compared with professional simulation tools, it runs fast, is easy to use, and the results are acceptable. It is good under normal conditions of use.
(3) ExpediTIon EnterPrise series is the star product of Mentor, EE. The main face is the demand of middle and high-end customers. Industry-leading technology levels in multi-layer boards, push, auto-route, and more. The schematic tool is mainly for Dxdesigner, and the PCB tool is ExpediTIon PCB (many people like to call WG, and workgroup). Mentor also has a BoardstaTIon (EN) series of tools, and many of the features are now integrated into Expedition. It feels that the Boardstation (EN) series will slowly withdraw from the historical stage and be completely replaced by the EE series. In addition, the number of people in the country is also very limited, reference materials and software are quite difficult to find.
Allegro, the layout tool of Cadence, has a high reputation in the industry. It is said that 60% of the world's computer motherboards and 40% of mobile phone motherboards are completed with Allegro. From one side, it can be seen that Allegro has a high market share in high-speed PCB board design. Originally, Cadence's schematic design tool Design Entry HDL was widely criticized, but since the acquisition of OrCAD, the weaknesses in the schematic diagram have been well compensated.
Now Cadence's main design process is OrCAD for schematic design, Allegro (PCB Editor) for PCB Layout. Because they are all one, the two tools can be seamlessly linked, which is very convenient to use. Cadence's automatic routing tool PCB Router function is also very powerful, and the routing rate is very high when the rules are set up well.
I have seen a complex PCB board consisting of four high-end FPGA chips from Xilinx. It is completely integrated with Cadence's own automatic routing tools. It requires only a few modifications and is deeply shocked. For different customers, Cadence has divided the software into different versions of L, XL, GXL and so on through different license authorizations, including different advanced functions.
To use the advanced features of the software, you must have a GXL license. Allegro's momentum has been fierce in recent years, and many large companies have turned to Allegro for PCB design. To a certain extent, Allegro became the de facto industry standard. In addition to PCB design tools, Cadence also comes with powerful simulation tools to synchronize design and simulation.
Altium's predecessor was Protel, which is very well-known in the country. Many students in the school also have the basic course Protel 99SE. The biggest feature of Protel is its flexibility, giving users the greatest freedom and doing almost anything they want. Many old engineers who have been using the DOS version have a soft spot for Protel. Some old engineers use Protel to draw PCBs directly, because the schematics are already familiar. This kind of design method that does not pay attention to the design process is flexible, but it will bring difficulties to the design work.
Since Protel 99SE, Altium has made several major upgrades to the software. The current version should be Altium Designer 13 (AD 13). The biggest feature of AD software is integration. It integrates all the functions into one tool. As the software is updated, the function becomes more and more powerful, and the size of the software is more and more unacceptable. However, some features are very intimate, considering the convenience of users. For example, displaying the network name in real time on the network, this function can be used in the new version of the software of other tools. It can be said that AD is still a good PCB design tool that is easy to use.
Zuken and CadSoft's products have a small domestic market share and are briefly introduced here. Zuken is a product of a Japanese company, so it is welcomed by many Japanese companies or companies with business in Japan. Zuken's high-end design tools are CR8000 and CR5000. The low-end design tool is CADSTAR. CadSoft's design tool is Eagle. It enters the domestic market late and has a certain market in Europe and America.
Although relatively rare, Eagle has its own characteristics. Focus on PCB design, no fancy features. The standard version supports 6-layer board design, and the professional version only supports 16-layer board design. The tool itself is small, fast, and inexpensive. For small businesses in Europe and the United States, it is a very affordable option. However, this does not seem to have an advantage in China, and everyone knows it.
Below we use a table to make an intuitive comparison of several tools.
Table 1 Comparison of tools
Analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of EDA tools in various products
By comparing the tools of several companies, we can clearly see the characteristics of various tools and give us a reference for learning. If you are an e-buffer or a beginner-designed student, then the first thing that you don't care about is the simplicity and ease of use. If your goal is to use circuit design as your subsequent career direction, then it is necessary to choose a tool with high market share and powerful functions. After all, the other purpose of learning tools is to communicate. If you use tools that you won't use, it will be difficult to communicate.
Then what is said is that although EDA technology is the core of electronic design technology, tools are tools. The purpose of hardware design is to design hardware products that meet the requirements. No matter which of the above tools can achieve this, the tool has no essential difference at this point. The real difference is the people who use the tool. Tools are just our weapons, and the focus of our learning should not be on the tools themselves, no matter which tool you choose to use. More time we still have to learn how to do a qualified design.
With EDA tools, electronic designers can design electronic systems from concepts, algorithms, protocols, etc. A lot of work can be done by computer, and the whole process of electronic products can be from circuit design and performance analysis to designing IC layout or PCB layout. The automatic processing on the computer is completed. The concept or scope of EDA is now widely used. In the fields of machinery, electronics, communications, aerospace, chemical, minerals, biology, medicine, military, etc., there are applications of EDA. At present, EDA technology has been widely used in major companies, enterprises and institutions and research and teaching departments.
Among these tools, PCB (Printed Circuit Board) design software has been developed, improved and improved over the years, or the survival of the fittest, mergers and acquisitions, or strong alliances, now only Cadence and Mentor are the only two companies .
Cadence's SPB (Silicon Package Board) series, the schematic tool uses Orcad CIS or Concept 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, DXP, and AD also have 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 highest-end PCB software, and large companies such as ZTE and Huawei use these high-end design software;
Among them, Cadence Allegro is now almost the industry standard in the design of high-speed board, 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 Very powerful, the wiring rules design is very professional; Mentor EN series is transplanted from the early UNIX system to the Windows system, is also the most professional PCB tool software, but it is difficult to learn, it is not recommended to self-study, but if it is necessary for work Let alone.
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.
Cadence products
Cadence's products have changed rapidly in recent years. There are many series such as Orcad/SPB/PSD. Many beginners will be confused about 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 constrain manager. If you need SI or constrain manager, you need to add additional configuration. 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 is now almost the industry standard in high-speed board design, and is being used by many large-scale electronic communications. The adoption of class companies, so master Cadence Allegro has substantial help in job hunting; in addition, its learning resources are also rich, more suitable for self-study. Now Cadence's products are: Cadence SPB16.2, Cadence SPB16.0, Cadence SPB 15.7, Cadence SPB15.5, Cadence SPB15.2, etc., the latest version of Cadence SPB17.2.
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:
* Concept 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
* EMControl electromagnetic compatibility check tool
* Synplify FPGA / CPLD synthesis tool
* HDL Analyst HDL Analyzer
* Advanced Package Designer advanced MCM package design tool
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.
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