What's Good About Capture’s Auto-Wiring? You’ll Need The SPB16.3 Release to See!

Just a brief post this week to highlight one of the new SPB16.3 features in Allegro Design Entry CIS.

In complex designs containing a large number of parts, the task of wiring the parts together is often a time consuming and tedious task. Wiring multiple pins to a bus can also be a tedious and repetitive task. Capture now includes an Auto-Wiring feature that allows you to wire two or more pins or wires on your schematic page.

There are three (3) modes in which Auto Wire will work:

• Connect two points
• Connect multiple points
• Connect to a bus

For more details and screenshots, read below.

Connect two points

To wire two points on a page (pin-to-pin, pin-to-wire or wire-to-wire).

1. From the Place menu, choose Auto Wire then choose Two Points as shown in the screenshot bellow:

Or click the Auto Connect two points button -     -  on the Draw toolbar. Capture is now in the Auto-Wire mode. Notice the cursor changes to the Auto-Wire cursor.

2. Click the pin or wire to start the net. As you move the cursor across the page notice a wire (from the start pin or wire) is formed. The wire stretches as you move across the page.

3. Click the pin or wire to end the net. A wire is created between the start and end points.

4 Choose the selection tool to exit the Auto-Wire mode or go back to step 2 to Auto-Wire other pairs of pins and wires on the page.

Connect Multiple Points

1. From the Place menu, choose Auto-Wire then choose Multiple Points.

Or click the Auto Connect multiple points button -  - on the Draw toolbar. Capture is now in the Auto-Wire mode. Notice the cursor changes to the Auto-Wire cursor.

2. Click the pin or wire to start the net.

3. Click the next pin or wire on the net.

4. Continue to click on as many pins or wires as required to create the complete net.

Note: Since you are in the Multiple Point mode, you do not need to press the Ctrl key to multi-select points on the page.

5. Finally, right-click anywhere on the schematic page and choose Connect.

Connect to Bus

1. From the Place menu, choose Auto Wire then choose Connect to Bus.

Or click the Auto Connect to Bus button -  - on the Draw toolbar. Capture is now in the Auto-Wire mode. Notice the cursor changes to the Auto-Wire cursor.

2. Select any number of pins and/or wires to be connected to the bus.

    Note: Since you are in the Connect to Bus mode, you do not need to press the Ctrl key to multi-select points on the page.

3. Select the bus. As soon as you select the bus, the wire connections between the selected points on the page and the bus are created. Notice that the bus entries for these connections are also made. When all the connections to the bus are made, you are prompted for the net alias. This net alias will be used for all the connections to the bus. You need to provide an alias name prefix followed by a numeric range in square brackets so that each net alias in the connections will use a name prefix followed by the sequenced numeric value. Take the example of the following alias name prefix and number range:
AD [9-0] - the net aliases will be named AD9, AD8, AD7 through to AD0.

4. Enter the net alias name prefix followed by the numeric range. All the connections to the bus are complete along with the number sequenced net aliases.

As always, I'm interested in your feedback on how you've adopted this new feature in constructing your schematics.

Jerry "GenPart" Grzenia