Design Rule Checks on the fly

Design Rule Check (DRC) is a critical part of PCB design. Schematic engineers need to make their designs error-free before they can be realized on the PCB board. However, it often happens that we run the DRCs late in the design cycle to realize that some of the mistakes could have been easily rectified earlier; but now, it is a fair amount of rework.

An ideal solution is to identify a check failure as soon as it occurs in the design. That way, the design will be created error-free, saving you a lot of rework and, thus, helping you meet your timelines. Online DRC in OrCAD Capture offers just that.

Once enabled, as soon as you make a wrong connection, give a duplicate net name, place a part without a footprint defined on it, or perform any action which causes a DRC to fail, it is flagged in the Online DRCs window.

Enable Online DRC in the Design Rules Check dialog. You can also enable/disable it for individual checks. So, if you know that footprint assignments are to be done later, disable just this one to avoid clutter and be informed of all other checks.

Team DesignTech

Cadence Design Systems