PCB Design Blogs

An increase in design complexity has forced designers to take novel approaches to meet routing challenges. Long back, designers used to group objects (vias, clines, or shapes) and copy-paste them in the design to reuse routing. The obvious drawback w...

The HotFix 013 (QIR 2, indicated as 2021 in the application splash screens) update for OrCAD® and Allegro® is now available at Cadence Downloads . This blog post contains important links for accessing this update and introduces some of the mai...

And what a year it has been! Like many of you, we've worked from home. We juggled house and office work, washed our hands innumerable times a day, rinsed every grape before putting it in the fridge, and scrambled to look presentable in conference...

When you are designing a schematic, you want to focus on the accuracy and performance of the circuit, and not spend time looking for and comparing various components on vendor websites. The integrated part search and placement feature in the OrCAD&re...

In one of the previous posts, we learnt about How to Run a RAVEL Rule from the GUI . The RAVEL rules that you write can be run from command line or Graphical User Interface (GUI) of Allegro® PCB Editor. You can also run these rules from Allegro&re...

Legacy material editors supported different file formats leading to inconsistencies across PCB and package substrate design applications. This drawback due to inconsistency is now overcome by the new Material Editor that uses a ...

In addition to reducing package creation time by 60-80%, Cadence Allegro ECAD-MCAD Library Creator has the Library Creator repository, which provides thousands of ready-to-use packages and templates. The repository allows centralized configuration-controlled storage...

It might seem simple, but database units and accuracy directly relate to the artwork generated, and it is possible to misunderstand the artwork format as it relates to the board setup. Thirty years ago, databases were set up as Mils (0.0) or Mil...

PSpice® A/D is a fully featured analog and mixed-signal simulator that can be integrated with OrCAD® and Allegro® tools. With PSpice A/D you can improve design functionality and reliability, and also verify the electrical performance of d...

Allegro® RF PCB solution provides you with a unified design solution for complex mixed-signal projects. From schematic to layout and manufacturing, a total front-to-back design flow helps you streamline your entire RF design process. You lay RF ...

Reflections happen on Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) whenever signals encounter an impedance discontinuity, so maintaining constant impedance along all interconnects is always desirable. But it’s not always possible to achieve this. In order to ...

Often organizations do not grant administrative privileges to users on their systems. Performing administrative tasks by standard users can be of greater risk than benefit as this could lead to serious virus and malware infections and catastrophic da...

All components on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) layout will have a footprint. A footprint is where your component gets soldered on the PCB. These footprints need to be extremely accurate so that your PCB can be properly assembled at the time of manufacturing. Allegro ECAD-MCAD Library Creator can create the most accurate and industry compliant footprints you could want. Usually, you might need to create your own custom...

In the process of developing a PCB design, a multitude of experts are involved in the verification of the design. These experts and various other stakeholders can be from your own company or from your manufacturer and they will be interested in parti...

In standard PCB designs, various masks and surface finishes require verification of proper clearances and coverage. The rigid-flex designs not only have the same mask and surface finish requirements but also have additional geometries, such as bend a...

You will agree if I say that the right use of color gets attention, enhances clarity, differentiates items, facilitates the identification of issues, and hence improves productivity. In PCB design, colors are particularly important for the reasons just mentioned, and colors very aptly have...

For every PCB designer, adding correct footprints to the PCB is important. Also, sometimes when you are creating a new project, your client demands a new component to be added to the design for which you do not have a footprint.

Installing new software seems like a daunting task for most of us. You may feel burdened with concerns like how to install and what options to choose, and so on. So, in this post, I will unload your worries and share some best practices to make the i...

You must be using find utility day in and day out, but if you are unfamiliar with Find by Query in Allegro Layout Editors, read on. Layout editors retained the original Find by Name when developing a new utility to do what Find by Name cou...

This post is in continuation of  Extending Allegro Layout Capabilities with SKILL , where I described how SKILL code can make things faster and more efficient even without having to code from scratch. In this post, we’ll see sample implementations...

Why do I need SKILL? The difference between generic departmental store clothing and premium custom tailoring is what the effective use of SKILL scripts can bring to your PCB Layout design world.  While our layout applications come loaded with power-packed features...

With the current scenario of COVID-19, you cannot do without rules. You have to soak vegetables in brine for ten minutes, wash milk in plastic packaging with soap, sanitize metals with an alcoholic solution (70% and above), and whatnot. Well, you get...

Crosstalk is the transfer of unwanted signals from an “aggressor” net to a “victim” and is one of the major classes of signal integrity (SI) problems that can exist in Printed Circuit Board (PCB) designs. Reducing crosstalk as...

Installation of software applications depends upon certain factors such as system configuration, the number of files getting installed, and network speed.  Installation time is influenced by a change in any of these elements and hence individual...

Do you want to quickly view a schematic, layout, or IC package without installing the complete OrCAD product suite? Get read-only access to design data created in OrCAD Capture, PCB Editor, Allegro Package Designer Plus? With 17.4-2019 HotFix...