BoardSurfers: Four Reasons to Use Allegro ECAD-MCAD Library Creator

I can bet, right now you are designing the latest smart product, a smartwatch maybe. And, in addition to managing the complexity due to size and density of the product and prioritizing to meet a hard deadline, you are also giving your thoughts, deep thoughts at that, to synchronizing the electronic and mechanical parts of the product. Mechanical parts are and were important for any PCB design but now, with the new intelligent devices and with the ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT), mechanical parts are no more just the nuts and bolts to fix your board. In fact, now your boards are integrated into traditional mechanical products.

Take the automobile industry, it's no more a 90% mechanical 10% electronics industry.  Yes, a collaboration between the mechanical and the electronics of your product is pertinent. And where do you begin? of course, with the parts used in your design, the electronic as well as mechanical components. You might agree because you think library creation time should be reduced, or because you want to be able to quickly bump up to new technologies in this fast-changing domain, or if 3D is a pressing need, or to improve the accuracy of your design.

Cadence® Allegro® ECAD-MCAD Library Creator helps you do all that and more - reduce library creation time by 60-80% by quickly creating libraries that are standard-compliant, ensure safety and quality through automatic checks and validations, and, of course, synchronize ECAD and MCAD libraries. Allegro ECAD-MCAD Library Creator utilizes the 3D STEP models provided by the leading electronic interconnect industry specialists such as Tyco, Molex, and Samtec to collaborate ECAD-MCAD libraries and generate advanced footprints. And, being the only product capable of leveraging 3D STEP models directly for footprint creation, definitely makes Allegro ECAD-MCAD Library Creator special.

In this post, I will concentrate on four ECAD-MCAD collaboration features of Cadence® Allegro® ECAD-MCAD Library Creator that can help you solve ECAD and MCAD library synchronization issues. Here we go.

Build a Unified Component Library in Minutes

Allegro ECAD-MCAD Library Creator has great capabilities and the latest technology that allows you to generate advanced footprints and synchronize ECAD-MCAD libraries. To generate ECAD footprints and MCAD library synchronization, Library Creator utilizes the 3D STEP models.

Allegro Library Creator uses both non-standard and standard packages in the generation of footprint and synchronization of ECAD and MCAD libraries. This enables the inter-operation of ECAD and MCAD libraries. Library Creator’s advanced algorithms automatically search and recognize packages from the repository that have matching contact areas and synchronizes them between footprints and package models. These synchronization details are kept in a database to improve library accuracy and maintain a consistent library and reduce design costs.

Access Ready-to-Use Models and Templates

Creating your own packages from scratch can really start to drain hours from your day.  But worry not. As I mentioned, Allegro Library Creator reduces the creation time of new packages by 60-80% because of the thousands of ready-to-use 3D packaged models and scores of templates. You can also create new custom package models from a large collection of terminal templates provided with the tool.

Repurpose Existing Libraries by Adjusting Rules

Building new libraries for any new technology or for changed or new requirements, say for rigid-flex or HDI boards, can take months. With ECAD-MCAD Library Creator, you can easily build new libraries for different technologies or manufacturing requirements by applying specific rules to existing libraries. The footprint generation technology of Library Creator allows accurate footprints to be generated using rules. These rules are based on internal company practices and industry standards, such as IPC-7531.

3D STEP Models for Footprint Generation

Most of the time, 3D models for components need manual positioning and are not in sync with the existing PCB footprints. This may delay development and you may have to re-design the product. In addition to being the only tool that generates a footprint directly from the 3D model, it lets you easily avoid footprint problems by importing 3D STEP models and viewing your part in 3D.

Although I have listed four important features of Allegro ECAD-MCAD Library Creator in this post, there's a lot more to it. Be on the lookout because we are coming up with future posts delving deeper into the various features.