What's Good About the SPB16.3 Release? Join The Virtual Conference 12/02/09 and See!

You will NOT want to miss this event! The first ever Virtual Trade Show for the SPB products will take place on December 2, 2009. Mark your calendars and register ASAP!

The event opens at 11:00am EST. All the Cadence® SPB16.3 products will be covered - Allegro® and OrCAD®, PCB and IC packaging/SiP design technology.

To attend this event - simply register here

You can read more about this from the main Cadence PCB site as well.

You can read about some of the technical details of the SPB16.3 release in the news article - "Cadence Leverages New Miniaturization Capabilities to Advance PCB Design Leadership"


Some key takeaways:

• The Allegro and OrCAD PCB Design Release 16.3 brings PCB engineers significant new benefits, including the ability to miniaturize the footprint of their end product and reduce the number of physical prototype iterations, making the design cycle more predictable.
• “We participated in the multiphase beta program for release 16.3 and were very impressed,” said Vincent Di Lello, senior PCB designer at Kaleidescape Canada, Inc. “The improvements in this new version address our miniaturization design challenges very well, and we look forward to adopting this new release into our design flow at the earliest opportunity after it is available.”
• Extended micro via stacking rules allow users to create the most difficult HDI designs, and multi-line curved bus routing that hugs the flex outline accelerates the creation of rigid-flex designs.
• An integrated 3D PCB viewer gives designers visibility into components and HDI micro via breakouts, thus eliminating unnecessary iterations with mechanical design teams.

  
  

  
  

• The Allegro PCB RF Option also helps engineers speed the time to create accurate RF circuits through the use of asymmetrical clearances for one or more RF elements.
• “This latest Allegro release provides many improvements to address miniaturization design challenges on a rigid or rigid-flex design,” said Scott Miller, chief operating officer at Freedom CAD. “As a design services company, we are always interested in improving our designer productivity and design process predictability. We will be moving to 16.3 and also recommending our customers to migrate soon.”
• OrCAD Capture CIS, for instance, now offers autowire capability to quickly add connections, as well as new 3D footprint viewing.
• OrCAD PCB Editor provides 3D viewing and “flip-board” design/editing and jumper support for single-sided PCB designs.

  
  

  
  

• OrCAD Signal Explorer has a revamped user interface, with drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste functionality, context-sensitive RMB functions and native IBIS model support.
• The Allegro PCB Signal and Power Integrity software offers a new user interface and adds stack-up-aware capabilities to the pre-route analysis environment. Buffer modeling standards are embraced through native IBIS and SPICE support, including Cadence Virtuoso® Spectre® Circuit Simulator models. Another improvement that boosts design cycle management is the ability to quickly scan a PCB with dozens of multi-gigabit signals and quickly determine where detailed analysis should be applied as signals are ranked according to their signal-to-noise ratio.
• The Part Data Management solution now offers an integrated ECAD, MCAD part creation, generation and distribution capability that reduces unnecessary physical prototype iterations. The new part introduction capability extends management, notification of pre-release and temporary parts to shrink the design cycle. In addition, engineers can implement part updates automatically based on approved, recommended replacements, ensuring quality of results through obsolete part tracking.
• The Allegro and OrCAD PCB Design Release 16.3 will be available for download by customers in early December 2009.

Keith Felton, Group Director of Product Management at Cadence says - "It's really like going to a mini DAC in a way, but through your computer."

Here are just a few of the highlights:

• You'll hear from the SPB Marketing team as they introduce the new features and functionality of the SPB16.3 Cadence® Allegro® and OrCAD® printed circuit board (PCB) software
• You can talk to people through on-line chats
• You'll see virtual booths with presentations and demonstrations
• You'll be able to watch videos
• There will be white papers you can review
• You'll hear from a number of guest speakers

You can visit 7 booths of interest within a virtual exhibition hall. Each booth targets a specific design task and contains information on the most recent technological improvements:

1. Allegro design authoring
2. Allegro PCB implementation
3. Allegro high-speed design
4. Allegro Design Workbench
5. Allegro IC packaging and SiP design
6. OrCAD PCB design
7. FPGA design

In addition to learning about the new SPB16.3 product features, there will be speakers from both the PCB industry and customers. Here's just a sample:

As always feel free to comment about what you'll be focusing on during this event and I'll post again after the 12/2/09 conference with a review.

Jerry "GenPart" Grzenia