Comprehensive comparison of three commonly Designer,Allegro SPB,PADS, used PCB design software
PCB design software is mainly used for drawing circuit schematics, logic simulation, circuit analysis, and automatic layout and wiring. The commonly used PCB design software are Altium Designer AllegroSPB and PADS. What are the similarities and differences between these three PCB design software in terms of functional characteristics, learning difficulty, and operating methods?
Altium Designer
Altium Designer is the industry's first complete board-level PCB design software. It integrates functions such as schematic drawing, schematic-based FPGA design, XSPICE mixed-signal electrical simulation, pre-wiring and post-wiring signal integrity analysis, rule-driven circuit board wiring and editing. Altium Designer's Proton broadens the traditional boundaries of board-level design, integrates FPGA design functions, and integrates process design, integrated PCB design, programmable device FPGA design, and embedded software development functions based on processor design.
Altium Desiner's Protel has a powerful design input function. In FPGA and board-level designs, it supports both schematic input and HDL hardware description input modes.
Features of Altium Designer
5.Provides a brand new FPGA design function, PCB and FPGA design system integration.
6. Altium Desiqner's Protel integrates traditional PCB design with digital logic circuit design, breaking through the boundaries of traditional board-level design, so that the system circuit design, verification and CAM output functions are combined. The two-way synchronization function of Altium Desiner's ProtelPCBSFPGAS pin fully interprets Altium's consistent concept of providing easy-to-learn and easy-to-use EDA design tools for mainstream designers.
7. Compared with the ProtelDXP version, Altium Designer has added many PCB design functions that current users are more concerned about, such as support for Chinese fonts, bus wiring, differential pair wiring, etc., and enhanced the function of pushing wiring. These updates have greatly enhanced the support for high-density board design.
8.Through the design document package, the functions of schematic editing, circuit simulation, PCB design and printing are organically combined to provide an integrated development environment.
9. it provides a rich schematic component library and PCB packaging library, and provides a packaging wizard program for the design of new devices, simplifies the packaging design process, and provides interactive wiring functions for high-density packages (such as BGA).
10. it provides a hierarchical schematic design method, supports the ”top-down" design idea, and makes it possible to develop a working group for large-scale circuit design.
11. Provides a powerful error checking function. The ERC (electrical rule check) tool in the schematic diagram and the DRC (design rule check) tool for PCB can help designers detect and correct errors faster. The latest version of Altium Designer18 provides a powerful and highly integrated board-level design release process, which can verify and package design and manufacturing data, simplify the release management system, standardize the process of publishing design projects, and make the configuration defined in the project more intuitive, concise, stable, and more importantly, the system can be directly linked to the background version control system.
Allegro SPB
Alegro SPB software provides a complete set of EDA auxiliary design tools for input, analysis, layout editing and manufacturing for the PCB board-level circuit system design process, including schematic input, digital, analog and hybrid circuit simulation, FPGA programmable logic device design, automatic layout and wiring, printed circuit board diagram and manufacturing data output, and signal integrity analysis for high-speed PCB board circuits.
Features of Allegro SPB
1. The hybrid design input tool supports analog/digital design from structure to circuit. The block diagram editing tool can automatically generate the block diagram of the module according to the HDL language description, or generate HDL language text from the high-end block diagram.
2. Top-down design can directly generate Verilog or VHDL network tables from hybrid-level design, so that users do not need to perform data conversion work during simulation.
3. You can drive the properties of the physical design and modify the constraints in the schematic diagram, including the wiring priority necessary for PCB design, terminal matching rules, etc.
4. Can check terminal mismatch, insufficient current, short circuit, unconnected pin, DRC error, etc.
5. Automatically highlight and customize inspection rules.
6. Electrical and physical rules drive design.
7. Automatic/interactive layout, automatic/interactive wiring
8. Use design rules with wiring length to meet the timing requirements of the circuit
9. Online analysis tools can complete physical design rule checks, such as signal noise, timing analysis, reliability, testability, producibility, thermal analysis, and for high-speed systems, electrical parameters such as transmission delay, parasitic capacitance, resistance, inductance, and characteristic impedance of traces can be calculated.
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10. It can calculate the crosstalk of the network, power/ground, electromagnetic compatibility, thermal drift, the rising and falling edges of the signal, overshoot and its forward and backward crosstalk, etc.
PADS
PADS can define safety spacing, wiring rules, and high-speed circuit design rules for each signal, and apply these plans hierarchically to the board, on each layer, on each type of network, on each group of networks, on each network, and even on each pin pair to ensure the correctness of the layout and wiring design. PADS includes a wealth of functions, including cluster layout tools, dynamic wiring editing, dynamic electrical performance checking, automatic dimensioning, and powerful CAM output capabilities. It also has the ability to integrate first-party software tools, such as SPECCTRA wiring device.
Features of PADS
The PADS desktop automation design solution provides a powerful environment that can provide schematic design and Lavout functions in an intuitive and easy-to-use environment. It is very suitable for circuit board design where complexity is reduced and cost is prioritized. The schematic diagram and PCB design converter can import the libraries and schematics in Alegro, Atium Designer, CADSTAR, OrCAD, P-CAD, and Prote into PADS.
1.Schematic design
PADS contains various system design inputs and definition functions. Intuitive project and design navigation, complete hierarchical support, startup library, and advanced design attribute and design rule management simplify the input and definition of schematics.
Complete forward and reverse labeling of layout and wiring can effectively improve work efficiency and productivity.
PADS contains all design rules and constraints, and provides online DRC inspection function. Multi-level hierarchical structure, complete the rule input process in the dialog-driven user interface. Default rules, class rules, network rules, group rules, pin pair rules, layer rules, condition rules, and component rules are all included.
2. Component management
Use PADS component management to access all component information through a single spreadsheet. PADS can be integrated with industry component and MRP databases through industry-standard ODBC (open standard database connection), so that cross-regional design teams can access central component information. Using PADS component management, the database is continuously synchronized and updated, thus avoiding costly redesign and quality problems, otherwise, these problems may not be detected until the later stages of the design cycle.
3. PartQuest
PADS connects partquest.com , And this website is closely integrated with component supplier Digi-Key and its complete component catalog to research, find and purchase components suitable for the new design, and then download the schematic symbols, packages, and parameter information directly to the PADS library. Nearly 500,000 components can be accessed through PartQuest, and each component has complete library data. In addition, more components will be added regularly.
4. Archive management
PADS archive management provides far more functions than just taking project snapshots. PADS can save all design information in a secure vault on a PC or network, and has added collaborative tools to simplify and improve engineering design reviews.
Using PADS, you can create a multi-person backup of project data, and easily retrieve the data for evaluation and modification in the future. When executed in different application situations (for example, constraint management, simulation and analysis, different layout options, etc.) PADS will automatically create archives for each stage, thereby saving time and cost.
View and search the vault, and use the graphical view to quickly and easily view the content in it. Use the vault to restore backups, create new projects from existing archives, and compare multiple versions. Use archive search, report generation, and comparison functions to improve team collaboration.Use intelligent annotations to easily add annotations and information. Intelligent annotations are not only associated with specific design objects, but also organize annotations by issues or topics in a reasonable manner.
5.PCBLayout
The advanced layout and wiring functions provided by PADS can save a lot of design time. By using design rules in combination with real-time design rule checking and two-way interactive display, the circuit board can be ensured to follow the design specifications, thereby eliminating the design prototype and costly changes after manufacturing.
The creation and modification of segmentation and mixing planes is also easy, and makes custom hot connections a breeze.
Radio frequency functions include vias stitching for easily creating coplanar waveguides, and the ability to fill areas containing vias according to rules. In addition, it also supports the import of complex RF shapes and chamfers.
Easily import STEP models to add 3D items such as components, housings, circuit assemblies, etc. in the Layout view. In addition, you can also assemble 3D with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Export to STEP, 3DPDF, JPG, BMP and other formats.