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Tuesday,
March 13, 2001
For Immediate Release
For more information contact:
Stéphane P. Des Lauriers
Corporate Communications
Precience, Inc.
Tel: +1 (301) 421-9054
E-mail: stephaned@precience.com
PRECIENCE’S PCBNAVIGATOR BRINGS ORCAD AND PADS USERS
CLOSER TOGETHER!
Burtonsville, Md., March 13, 2001 –
Precience, Inc., has released PCBNavigator® 3.0 software providing complete bi-directional integration between schematic editors such as OrCAD and PCB systems such as PADS at the database level. The new PCBNavigator product reduces PCB board turns due to delays caused by incorrect design rules and ECO errors. Design constraints are managed at the schematic level allowing design engineers to specify all of their critical "high speed" design rules and forward them directly to the PCB designer. Designs are debugged faster with the support of OLE-based bi-directional cross probing between the schematic and PCB systems. Most importantly, design integrity is maintained by keeping designs in sync with PCB ECO changes (Pin/Gate Swap, Reference Design rename, Rules, etc.). ECO changes may easily be back-annotated into OrCAD Capture through automatic Swap file (.swp) generation.
This updated version of the PCBNavigator solution includes a new OLE Automation direct plug-in for OrCAD Capture version 9.2 (schematic) and PADS PowerPCB version 3.6 that facilitates netlist transfers, back-annotation, forwarding ECO changes, netlist comparisons and hot synchronization of schematic and PCB layout databases with the touch of a button.
The new PCBNavigator software’s seamless integration between multiple vendors’ systems allows companies the freedom to use whichever design system they wish, including any outside service bureau. In addition to schematic capture (front end) interfaces with OrCAD Capture versions 7.2 through 9.x, Precience has developed interfaces with Innoveda WVOffice and DxViewDraw. Supported PCB layout (back end) platforms include PADS PowerPCB versions 2.x through 3.6, Protel PCAD 2000, and Zuken-Redac CADStar versions 3.4 and 4.0. Extended platform support as well as complete Java-based Unix versions will be rolled out later this year.
This updated PCBNavigator solution empowers design engineers to accurately describe PCB rules at the schematic level and forward these constraints to the PCB designers. This eliminates the time consuming task of manually describing PCB constraints on a separate document, which until now was the only method of forwarding constraints in a non-integrated environment. Using the PCBNavigator product, designers are able to accurately assign board, net, net class, component, component class, clusters, and placement rules at the OrCAD schematic capture level. The new PCBNavigator software compiles these rules, and builds a complete PCB netlist. This version of the PCBNavigator software is the only product for OrCAD users that allows constraint driven board-level design for a target PCB system, such as PADS and other third party PCB tools. The PCBNavigator product automatically provides vendor approved PCB attributes for the target PCB system and a simple way to manage and administer user-defined attributes through spreadsheets and wizards.
Today, complex designs require engineers to provide both design constraints for “critical” nets and component placement on the PCB system. Unfortunately, most CAE schematic systems offer limited capabilities for describing and managing PCB constraints. Even in cases where all constraints can be defined and managed, problems occur in forwarding these constraints to a non-integrated PCB system in a PCB netlist because support for PCB routing and placement constraints is very limited. This problem worsens when users wish to back-annotate design rules from the PCB system to the schematic level. Back-annotation is essential to review rules and maintain design synchronization for forward ECO processes during concurrent engineering and design layout, as well as to ensure accurate design maintenance.
When netlists are used to communicate critical circuit information to the PCB designer, detailed analysis of the netlist, schematic and footprint layout becomes inevitable. Multiple design iterations are needed to achieve optimum signal integrity and often require changing the design components and net topologies. When this task is performed at the PCB layout level, designers are forced to go back and forth among the design layout, signal analyzer, and schematic capture. Once a circuit is optimized, users need to back-annotate any change to the schematic level, usually manually.
By integrating the software systems, this new PCBNavigator solution eliminates this back and forth manual method of designing. Precience offers a net topology extractor that shows all the drivers and receivers on a signal. The net topology extractor helps determine via fan-out limits and applies stronger routing constraints to achieve better signal integrity.
Pricing and Availability
The PCBNavigator 3.0 software is available on Windows 98/NT4.0/2000. The U.S. list price for a nodelock license is $1,995 with annual maintenance fees of $395, whereas a floating license is $3,495 with annual maintenance fees of $695. Interested users are encouraged to visit the Precience Web site and download an unrestricted license for a fifteen-day trial.
Precience is a leading worldwide developer of EDA Design Supply Chain™ integration technology products including Obsolescence
Manager™. Precience is a privately held company established in 1995 with corporate headquarters at 4040 Blackburn Lane, Suite 180, Burtonsville, Maryland, 20866. To learn more about Precience and its products, please visit the Precience Web site at
http://www.precience.com. For further information contact Precience at (301) 421-9054, or via e-mail at
info@precience.com.
Precience, ahead of time, the Precience logo, PartNavigator, Design Supply Chain, Obsolescence Manager, and PCBNavigator are trademarks or registered marks of Precience, Inc. All other trademarks or registered marks are the property of their respective holders.
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