Electronic Design - What are the commonly used PCB design software?

PCB circuit board design software generally includes two major modules: schematic design and PCB design; now commonly used software includes AltiumProtel series, Altium Designer 6.0, Mentor Graphics PADS series, Cadence OrCAD, P-CAD2006PCB design software.

AltiumProtel series

PROTEL is the EDA software launched by Altium in the late 1980s. The early PROTEL was mainly used as an automatic wiring tool for printed boards. It runs in a DOS environment and has low hardware requirements. It can run under 1M memory of a 286 machine without a hard disk., But it has fewer functions, only circuit schematic drawing and printed board design functions, and its printed board automatic wiring layout rate is also low. Today, PROTEL has developed to DXP 2004, which is a huge EDA software. It is fully installed with more than 200M. It works in the WINDOWS95 environment. It is a complete board-level omni-directional electronic design system. It includes circuit schematic drawing, analog circuit and digital circuit mixed signal simulation, and multi-layer printed circuit board design ( Including automatic wiring of printed circuit boards), programmable logic device design, chart generation, spreadsheet generation, support for macro operations and other functions, and has a Client/Server (client/server) architecture, and is also compatible with some other design software files Formats, such as ORCAD, PSPICE, EXCEL, etc., the automatic routing of multi-layer printed circuit boards can achieve 100% layout rate of high-density PCB. PROTEL software is relatively easy to buy in China, and there are many books about PROTEL software and instructions for use, which provides a foundation for its popularization.

1. Altium Designer 6.0

Altium Designer 6.0 is an application software. It is an integrated electronic product development system launched by the original Protel software developer Altium. It mainly runs on the Windows operating system. This software provides designers with brand-new design solutions through the perfect integration of schematic design, circuit simulation, PCB drawing editing, topology logic automatic routing, signal integrity analysis and design output, etc., so that designers can easily When designing and using this software proficiently, the quality and efficiency of circuit design will be greatly improved.

The new features of Altium Designer 6.0 include differential pairs, dynamic network allocation, BGA escape routing, extract design fragments, Board InsightTM function, flip and edit boards, True Type fonts, enhanced interactive routing functions, and import wizards to reduce the complexity of project import Sex and so on.

2. Mentor Graphics PADS series

Mentor Graphics 2015 is a PCB design software. The software is mainly developed to provide solutions for software/hardware. The development of science and technology is constantly accelerating, and the corresponding application design tools are also continuously enhanced and optimized, so the accuracy of PCB design It is also getting higher and higher. Today, the editor recommends a program that can provide solutions quickly and efficiently, a new 3D design tool, support for PADS process simulation, etc., support for DRC detection of design rules, and make the layout and schematic diagram necessary In addition, it also supports the verification of ERC and LPE, which is convenient and fast.

3. Cadence OrCAD

It integrates circuit schematic drawing, printed circuit board design, digital circuit simulation, programmable logic device design and other functions, and its interface is friendly and intuitive. Its component library is also the most abundant of all EDA software. It has always been the first choice in EDA software in the world. After ORCAD merged with CADENCE in July 2000, it became the most powerful company in the world to develop EDA software. Its product ORCAD century integrated version works under WINDOWS95 and WINDOWSNT environments, and integrates electrical schematic drawing and printing. Circuit board design, analog and digital circuit mixed simulation and other functions, its circuit simulation component library has reached 8,500, including almost all general-purpose electronic component modules.

4. P-CAD2006PCB

P-CAD 2006, a board-level design system for PCB design engineers. This version provides more than 50 new functions and enhanced functions, provides technical updates for layout, automatic routing and interactive routing, improved CAM file editing and circuit simulation, and many additional functions to better control the entire PCB design Process. Another important feature is Altium's CAMtastic 2006 CAM file editor, which can edit the complete manufacturing file data before sending the circuit board to manufacturing, and can provide enhanced SPICE 3f5 / XSpice mixed-signal circuit simulation.