The guys and gals at Cadence have just announced hot new releases of their Allegro and OrCAD printed circuit board (PCB) software, with new features and functionality designed to boost productivity and performance for PCB engineers.

Now, before we leap into the fray, some users may feel that OrCAD has been somewhat ignored in recent times ... and I'm certainly not in a position to argue against that ... but what I will say is that this new OrCAD release is making up for lost time (it's new auto-route feature brought tears of joy to my eyes, for example).

Just like the chip packaging market I mentioned in my previous blog, the PCB market is being driven from several different directions, including the need to differentiate oneself from one's competitors, the need to get to the market (and profit) as quickly as possible, and the need to do all of this while being environmentally aware.

Differentiation means designing smaller, faster, higher-capacity, and more stylish products (associated technology challenges are increased functional density and managing the increased design complexity). Getting to market faster requires streamlining design cycles while reducing costs and reducing risks (challenges include increasing productivity and predictability, and also in-process analysis and verification for compliance). And being environmentally aware involves using ecologically-friendly parts, lowering power consumption, and avoiding hazardous materials (challenges include managing power and ensuring regulatory compliance).

In order to address these points, Allegro and OrCAD PCB Design Release 16.3 brings PCB engineers significant new benefits, including the ability to miniaturize the footprint of their end product and reduce the number of physical prototype iterations, making the design cycle more predictable.

The Allegro and OrCAD built-in 3D design viewer eliminates
unnecessary iterations with the mechanical design team.

This release addresses increased functional and interconnect density through improvements for rigid-flex routing, extended high-density interconnect (HDI) rules, 3D viewing of PCBs and asymmetrical clearance for RF circuits. Extended micro via stacking rules allow users to create the most difficult HDI designs, and multi-line curved bus routing that hugs the flex outline accelerates the creation of rigid-flex designs.

Additionally, an integrated 3D PCB viewer gives designers visibility into components and HDI micro via breakouts, thus eliminating unnecessary iterations with mechanical design teams. The Allegro PCB RF Option also helps engineers speed the time to create accurate RF circuits through the use of asymmetrical clearances for one or more RF elements.

The new 3D PCB design viewer provides an interactive view of an entire
design or a selected portion of a design such as HDI via arrays.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, also featured in the 16.3 release are a number of significant productivity and usability improvements to the OrCAD family of products. OrCAD Capture CIS, for instance, now offers autowire capability to quickly add connections, as well as new 3D footprint viewing. OrCAD PCB Editor provides 3D viewing and "flip-board" design/editing and jumper support for single-sided PCB designs. OrCAD Signal Explorer has a revamped user interface, with drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste functionality, context-sensitive RMB functions and native IBIS model support.

Usability improvements are another focus of the latest Allegro PCB Signal and Power Integrity software, which offers a new user interface and adds stack-up-aware capabilities to the pre-route analysis environment. Buffer modeling standards are embraced through native IBIS and SPICE support, including Cadence Virtuoso Spectre Circuit Simulator models. Another improvement that boosts design cycle management is the ability to quickly scan a PCB with dozens of multi-gigabit signals and quickly determine where detailed analysis should be applied as signals are ranked according to their signal-to-noise ratio.

Other key issues addressed are associated with part data management.  Integrated ECAD, MCAD part creation, generation and distribution reduce unnecessary physical prototype iterations. The new part introduction capability extends management, notification of pre-release and temporary parts to shrink the design cycle. In addition, engineers can implement part updates automatically based on approved, recommended replacements, ensuring quality of results through obsolete part tracking.

Availability
The Allegro and OrCAD PCB Design Release 16.3 will be available for download by customers in early December 2009.