What's Good About Allegro PCB Editor Split Plane Association? 16.6 Has Several New Enhancements!

In the 16.6 Allegro PCB Editor release, net associations to split planes are now stored in the database. This reduces chance of error when re-generating split planes on positive or negative layers. The former use model required re-assignment of a net during the command, which was error prone and cumbersome.

When a split plane is regenerated, the net choice dialog for each shape is set to the default net that will be assigned to the shape. If you click ‘OK,’ it confirms the net assignment to the shape.  If you wish to select a different net, then select the ‘*’ in the drop-down and then select the correct shape.

If ‘Cancel’ is selected in the net selection dialog, a confirmer dialog with two choices will appear:

• Click OK to allow the system to automatically assign nets to the remaining shapes based on database association
• Click Cancel to set all remaining shapes to dummy nets

Read on for more details …   

Consider a PCB .brd file example with multiple signal layers. Enable the visibility of the GND_1 subclass including ‘Anti Etch’:



There are three split regions on this layer: GND, GND1, and 60V. We need to extend the existing split region to include J5-1. Select the ‘Delete’ command with the Find Filter adjusted to ‘Other Segment’. Delete the horizontal segment as shown below:




Invoke the Add – Line command, then adjust following the guidelines below:



Invoke Edit – Split Plane – Create to regenerate the split plane -
a.    Click to OK to simulate the pre-16.6 behavior mentioned. This could be quite tedious and error prone with large numbers of split regions.
b.    Click the ‘UNDO’ command to reset
c.    Now run the ‘Split Plane Create’ function once again
d.    This time, click the Cancel button, which invokes the dialog below:


e.    Click ‘OK’ to auto assign the net names

Please share your experiences using this capability.

Jerry “GenPart” Grzenia