Why Move Up to Allegro 17.2-2016? New Concurrent Team Design Capability (Reason 2 of 10)

6 Sep 2016 • 3 minute read

Use teamwork to get off the critical path!

When (not if) change happens or scope creeps... the PCB design team is always on the critical path. You can answer this schedule challenge by dynamically scaling resources with the new concurrent team design capabilities in the Allegro 17.2 2016 Release. We created this product offering to provide designers with a quick an easy way to share a common Allegro database to perform collaborative design activities to tackle today's design challenges. Whether a formal project team is formed or at a moment's notice, a designer can simply share their current design and invite other designers to join for assistance. You can also accelerate the project by letting your experts contribute by specialty. With no added design management by copying databases around and cut/paste design updates into a master database, the new Allegro® PCB Symphony Team Design Option is a real-time collaborative environment using a single database that can be made available to the design team in minutes.

Solution One: Think "24 x 7"

Ideal for distributing the work across multiple design locations, our original "asynchronous" Allegro PCB Team Design Option supports splitting the work into partitions of the design and merging the results into a master database. The workflow manager provides partitioned section status and multidirectional communication features that encourage strong collaboration between designers. Team members can view the work of others and easily address the shared areas between partitions using soft boundaries to work outside of partitions and create layer-based partitions. The Merge Wizard automates steps involved with front-end netlist changes and automates the merge-import netlist-split process while resolving constraint conflicts.

Solution Two: Think "Triple Team" (new for 17.2 2016)

Ideal for adding more team members in the same location, our new "synchronous" Allegro PCB Symphony Team Design Option supports real-time co-design. By connecting users to a common Allegro PCB database, multiple designers can easily work on the design at the same time, and any changes made by one team member are seen in real-time by all members. The initial release is focused on reducing the PCB design cycle time during the routing stages of the design that can account for up to 80% of the overall project schedule for dense, complex designs. We provided support for component rearrangement including Reuse Module and Place Replica groups; interactive routing with dynamic shape/trace plowing; route finishing tools like Auto-Interactive Phase/Delay Tuning, Timing Vision and Custom Smooth; and even the ability to complete silkscreen and assembly cleanup. All users’ modification will generate a temporary display of possible updates with visual "color-coded" canvas locks with each client having the ability to apply permanent locks on interfaces they are working on all to allow the team to work happily.

Save time, get ahead of schedule

Designers today spend the majority of their time during the routing phases of the design and have adopted the Auto-Interactive capabilities to accelerate routing and tuning. Using the new Symphony Team Design Option in the Allegro 17.2-2016 release, will take it to a higher level with designers working together on the same design to complete the routing effort which can shorten routing time by up to 80% for dense and complex designs.

As always your comments are welcome!

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