advice on selecting new PCB design package

Thu Feb 23, 2006 9:14 am   

Hi,

In leui of a FAQ for this group, here goes with a likely hot
chestnut...

I'm looking for a good schematic capture and PCB design package to
replace our very flaky EasyPC.

We need both good schematic and PCB layout capabilities, ideally in one
system.

Best I outline the requirements...
We do pretty straightforward analogue and digital designs, and a lot of
microwave RF designs.
We create a lot of our own components (sch and PCB elements) as many of
the parts we use are very often not in any libraries.
Our boards (especially RF boards) are often multilayer, with blind
vias, have curved tracks of need-to-be defined width and length, and
always copper pours. (EasyPC copper pours lets us down a lot).
We also need to export boards (with components) to 3D mech CAD
(Solidworks) in some format.
We need good autorouting for non RF boards of course.

The players I am looking at are:
Electronics Workbench
Eagle
OrCAD
Cadstar
Pulsonix

I'd really appreciate comments from users of these packages about their
suitability for our tasks, and if they are stable in use etc.

thanks

Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:00 pm   

megoodsen wrote:

a full, commercial package. However, if you really need to do good RF
design, add Microwave Office to your list.

Charlie

Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:15 pm   

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 09:00:06 -0800, the renowned Charlie Edmondson
<edmondson_at_ieee.org> wrote:


Is anyone using Agilent ADS?

Thu Feb 23, 2006 6:39 pm   

"megoodsen" <hq105862_at_hotmail.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
1140686047.914352.18380_at_j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Hi,

I have right now exactly the same problem, looking for a new CAD tool, for
nearly exactly the same kind of designs (mainly RF).

On my side I added one constraint : budget under 2-3K$. That reduced my list
to the following : PADS (but without any autorouter for this budget), Eagle
(but may be a little limited for difficult RF designs), and Proteus
(Isis/Ares). CADSTAR seems great but a little over budget for me, Orcad,
Pulsonix and Protel are significantly more expensive as far as I've found.

So I am tempted to give a try to Proteus, I've just downloaded the demo and
the tool seems quite well done and full of features, even if the user
interface seems not really windows-standard. Any experiences from Proteus
users, especially doing RF designs ?

Cheers,
Robert

Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:39 am   

"Spehro Pefhany" <speffSNIP_at_interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote in message
news:mdrrv1hivek7fsv2lb5bjchit1tupph2cm_at_4ax.com...

I wrote some Foundry tools in that when I was doing support for folks like
Ericsson and Nokia. Though Nokia preferred Aplac.

Robert

Fri Feb 24, 2006 11:03 am   

Robert Lacoste wrote:

They bought Proteus where I used to work. It was usable (a friend of
mine did lots of designs with it, including some complex 6-layer ones),
but had lots of bugs and shortcomings. Support (in the UK) was
non-existent. I used it once when he was on holiday, just to modify a
couple of tracks, and it was *very* hard work. Perhaps I am spoiled,
I've used Pulsonix since it first came out.

Leon

Fri Feb 24, 2006 7:37 pm   

Hi Leon,

Speaking of modifying tracks...

"Leon" <leon_heller_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1140779005.759499.78640_at_i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
"I used it once when he was on holiday, just to modify a
couple of tracks, and it was *very* hard work. Perhaps I am spoiled,
I've used Pulsonix since it first came out."

In my experience Protel is better than Pulsonix when it comes to the
"automatic loop removal" feature that's quite useful while re-routing tracks.
(Pulsonix seems as after as not to think you're drawing a new track rather the
re-routing.) How about you?

Fri Feb 24, 2006 7:58 pm   

Joel Kolstad wrote:

I've never really used Protel. I tried it a couple of years ago, just
out of curiosity, but didn't like it all. I found it very difficult to
use.

Leon

Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:34 am   

Hi,
Our Company has been using ORCAD for years and we are now switching
over to PADS due to a lot of problems with ORCAD.
PADS has a good link to Hyperlinx in case you want to simulate your
PCB's performance. ORCAD claims to have .HYP generation capability but
it does not work correctly.
PADS layout is extremely good, supports interactive and autorouting,
handles impedance pairs easily -even when autorouting!- and easy to
use. Of the many packages I have used so far, PADS is the best!

Regards,
Telep

Mon Feb 27, 2006 8:32 am   

Telep,

Could you tell me what kind of problems you had with OrCAD?

On paper, EASYPC does a lot of what we want, but in reality, it too
gives us too many problems and loses a lot of time as a result...

thanks

Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:50 am   

Listed from trash to gold:

Proteus v6.9
Hobbyist-grade capture and layout. Their claim to fame for hobbyists is
their interactive microcontroller simulation integrated in the capture
package. Capture is OK, layout "works", is all I'll say.

Eagle v4.16
Very nice little hobbyist-grade package. The interface is a little odd
but it gets the job done and the price is very reasonable. No frills,
just works good doing basic boards.

Electronics Workbench (MultiSim) v9 with UltiBoard & UltiRoute
I loved Electronics Workbench when I was a student and I still like
MultiSim but using it for capture and layout is just wrong. It's moved
out of the hobbyist-grade ranks but the layout section, called
UtilBoard, is a mess. The router is a joke. I have to say that I really
like the user interface for UltiBoard but the program is slow even on a
faster machine and...well, it's just a mess. They have a downloadable
v9 demo, try it for a laugh.

Pulsonix
A decent package with a fair price. The autorouter is acceptable. Not
bad at all. Suspect the software company has one principle
programmer/owner. Also comes with a one-man promoter and cheerleader
called Leon. Don't know his relationship with Pulsonix but the guy pops
up everywhere on the net with a good word for Pulsonix. (Google
keywords "Pulsonix" & "Leon" on the web and in the groups.)

OrCAD v10.5
Very respectable, professional package with the best autorouter
available. You could do a lot worse.

PADS 2005
A very respectable package. The low-end of the high-end packages. A
terrific value for the money but not cheap.

If money is not a problem, go with PADS. If it is, check out Orcad or
maybe Pulsonix.

Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:13 am   

Appreciations are always personnal but here I strongly disagree with your
ranking : We moved from Electronic Workbench to Proteus for our
professionnal designs after a quite exaustive benchmark (including Orcad,
Pads and others), and concluded that Proteus was the best value for money,
in particular when comparing apples to apples in term of pricing. I mean
when comparing high-end Proteus configurations (with mixed mode advanced
simulation and the very good Electra autorouter option) with entry level
"expensive" packages (usually without autorouting at all nor simulation for
the same price). Of course a high level PADS is great, but at what price ?

Proteus's interface is quite unusual, but pleasant and homogeneous after
some hours. For our mixed-signal designs it has all the features we were
looking at : blind/buried vias, unlimited polygonal ground planes with real
time refresh and automatic island removal, backannotation, stacked pads,
panellisation, etc. The schematic side has very powerful "macro" features,
and is able to export the netlist in all common standards. The Electra
autorouter seems *very* good, quite as good for medium complexity designs
than the Specctra router we used before (we don't use the internal
autorouter). And lastly the technical support was really good the three
times we called them. Two drawbacks : the libraries are quite limited, and
no dedicated features for the routing of high speed busses.

Friendly yours,
Robert Lacoste
www.alciom.com




"Dax" <email_demonoid_at_yahoo.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
1142322650.273937.281350_at_v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...

Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:55 am   

Dax wrote:

I'm just a user and beta-tester, and have used it since it first came
out. Pulsonix has quite a few programmers,each with many years of PCB
software design experience. I also run the Pulsonix Yahoo group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PulsonixUG/

Leon

Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:13 am   

"Dax" <email_demonoid_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1142322650.273937.281350_at_v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...

I don't believe they're *that* small; I get the impression it's probably more
like 2-4 programmers and another half dozen admin/sales/support people. Note
that they license their SPICE simulation and the auto-router.


I think Leon's just been using Pulsonix almost since it came out, it meets his
needs, and he has close enough ties to Pulsonix that a lot of what he'd like
to see added to it ends up in up, so he couldn't be happier. :-)

As another Pulsonix user, I'd say that it is a good, "solid" product although
its interface is not quite as "seamless" as I'd like it to be. (For instance:
I'd prefer panning with the mouse to move the schematic the way the mouse is
moved rather than opposite it. I'd prefer to be able to copy & paste a bunch
of components and have them electrically connect themselves to what they're
dropped on... and this doesn't occur.) Still, these are "little things" that
one can learn to live with with only occasional cursing; Pulsonix has a lot of
the "fancy" features that the big boys do (support for net classes, "rooms,"
arbitrary attributes, etc.) that are seem quite uncommon in packages at its
price point. For the hobbyist, however, these features often go unneeded,
hence my suggestions in the past that people also look at the likes of Rimu
PCB, gnuEDA, etc.


Haven't tried it for PCB layout, but for schematics I'd say it's "comfortable"
(it does get the job done with a minimal of annoyance) if not outstanding.
Hasn't had any significant updates in years; on-going development is now in
India. (Which is to say -- most likely by people who are programmers and not
PCB layout techs. This criticism is probably valid for many other packages as
well.)


I haven't used PADS enough to really get to like it, but I have used it enough
to know how annoying it can be. Ever tried the "make re-use" feature? It's
borderline worthless, yet it's part of a package that adds thousands of
dollars to the price tag.

The main packages you didn't mention were Protel and Accel (now owned by
Protel). Back in the Protel 3 days, I used it a lot and really liked it; I
don't have any experience with newer versions.

---Joel Kolstad

Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:23 am   

Missed Protel and P-CAD, sorry.

Protel [16-bit v2.8; v3; 98; 99; 99SE SP6]
The multiple lives of Protel. The old 16-bit Advanced Schematic and PCB
in their later 2.x existence were solid programs you could get a lot
done with. It's a shame they're not available now, they were that good.
They're still available on some Chinese EDA warez distrubution sites so
if you Google hard enough, you can still ferret out a copy to compare
to the modern packages. At v3 Protel switched to the integrated
client/server scheme and things started to get buggy. v3, crap. 98,
crap. 99, not crap but buggy. Protel 99 SE with SP6, very good with few
bugs. This is a program that can handle most any everyday board. Highly
recommended. The autorouter is capable and the tight coupling between
schematic and layout should be a model for other vendors. The 30-day
unlimited demo and the all-important Service Pack 6 are still widely
available around the net (wink, hint, nudge, see below). When Protel
moved to DXP (2002 release), the product fell on it's face. SP1 helped
and SP2 makes it usable. The Situs autorouter was a disappointment. DXP
2004 introduced more problems. The current product is still DXP 2004
but it was renamed Altium Designer 6. The one thing to know about
Altium is that they are *always* adding more features before previous
problems have been fixed. This is their big, big problem. Altium
Designer 6 lets you flip the board and work on it from behind. Great,
but how about they get the Situs autorouter to follow its rules
correctly, *first*! The hardware requirements of Designer 6 are
absolutely ridiculous as is the multiple monitor recommendation.
DXP/Designer 6 looks like a hot product but dig deep and you'll see
that it comes up short, quickly. Explore the Protel Knowledge Base and
see for yourself. The last time I was following their open support
forum it sounded like many of the users wanted to sue. Leon, you've
commented on the user revolts at the Altium forum more than once,
haven't you? I'd really like DXP if it worked right. About Altium: I've
personally handled contacts with Altium sales to purchase tens of
thousands of dollars worth of licenses for their embedded compiler tool
chains and can tell you they really didn't seem to care if they sold a
license or not. I'd ask for a quote and it would take *days* to get a
response. Inevitably there would be an error on the quote, like if the
license was to be node-locked or floating. It would take days and phone
call reminders to get an ammended quote. People applying for welfare
get treated better than that. I just didn't understand it. Then it
would take another 7-10 days for the lady with the fricking license
generator to send me the license files after they confirmed payment had
cleared! This was in '02.

P-CAD
I don't have much experience with this other than evaluation so I can't
say anything other than it is a serious tool targeted toward layout
people. I'd like to hear from P-CAD users.

Comments have been made comparing the Electra autorouter to Specctra.
Electra is a decent router for the money but please, it can't compare
to Specctra at any level. It's like comparing a Cessna 170 to a flying
saucer. If Electra did better then Specctra on "moderately complex"
designs, then someone does not know how to control Specctra. Pushing
the "Go" button is not autorouting. It takes a considerable amount of
time and knowledge to set a design up for effective autorouting with
Specctra but it always pays off. This company sells Specctra training
videos. They want $995 USD for the beginner course and another $995 USD
for the advanced course. Probably worth every penny.

http://www.accelerated-designs.com/info/TrainingCDs.shtml

As a reply to the comments about Proteus, come on, it's
*hobbyist-grade*. In the layout (ARES) manual, instructions are given
for individuals how to output CAM data to a printer with drill-holes
shown so they can be used as manual drilling targets for people who
etch their own boards at home. ARES and ISIS were started well but
appear to be several years behind other products *except* for their
terrific microcontroller simulation. It's not simply an instruction set
simulator, the full microcontroller is modeled along with the A/D SPICE
in real time. If you're building a microcontroller widget, this is the
platform to develop the firmware on before real hardware exists. I know
I'm really bad for saying this but the default color scheme for the
schematic capture section of the product has that "circus came to town"
look. I load a color template carefully prepared to match Protel 99SE
colors (used a color-picker utility) so it looks presentable.

OrCAD Capture is simply the best in it's class. It looks great and
works great. OrCAD Layout is not the best but OK and is tightly
integrated with Specctra, king of autorouters. There is also a very
good public support forum at the Cadence website with some very helpful
Elmers. Compare that to the Cadence website where everything related to
support is under lock and key with a password unless you have a support
contract. I'm I right there or will just a license do to get an access
password? Yes, development has slowed and now should be called
maintenance. v9.2.3 was where it came of age as long as all the updates
are applied. I don't see anything to write home about in v10 and I
haven't tried v10.5 yet.

Sorry Leon, I shouldn't have stepped on your tail like that. While
researching Pulsonix last year I read just about every word you've
written on the net and know you're on the up and up.

I rated Electronics Workbench v9, the Frankenstein of EDA packages,
above Proteus and Eagle because EW is solidly in the professional
class. MultiSim has been bloated until it functions as a Capture
package and UltiBoard & UltiRoute have been bolted on and made to
integrate with MultiSim. It's crappy but it works and the feature set
puts it above hobbyist-grade. I don't like it there but it has to be.
I'd pick Proteus over EW to use for normal PTH designs if I had my
choice but overall, EW ranks higher on my scale. Sorry.

Mentor Graphics Expedition
I've never seen or studied this but a buddy has been promising for 6
months to give me a copy. It is supposedly the Holy Grail of PCB
systems. Exceedingly difficult to learn but all powerful and all
knowing. I'd love to hear comments from current users.

Another product I haven't used is Zuken Cadstar. I trialed it at v6 for
a couple of hours and wasn't impressed but I hear it is in the PADS
class or higher, now.

No-Brainers
If a teen hobbyist came to me and wanted to learn PCB design, I'd steer
them toward Eagle (free version.) If an Engineering intern wanted the
same thing I'd start them with Protel 99 SE SP6 (free, unlimited 30-day
trial). Anyone else has to decide for themselves.

Protel 99 SE SP6
http://vasy.dlug.hu/downloads/doc2/elektro/elektro/protel99se-trial/01-setup/protel99se_full_trial_version_.exe
http://www.altium.com/files/protel/downloads/files/protel99seservicepack6.exe
http://www.altium.com/files/protel/legacy/handbookp99se.pdf