Wiring made easy!

Wiring the circuit is probably the most time-consuming part of the schematic drawing. The process requires drawing precise wires from one pin to another a thousand times, connecting signals to buses, and naming the bus bits. Any help that schematic design tools can offer with establishing connectivity saves you a lot of time and energy.

OrCAD Capture has some nifty wiring features up its sleeves. You can use the following options  available in the Electrical toolbar:

• Auto Connect two points
• Auto Connect multi points
• Auto Connect to Bus

Select the Auto Connect two points button and choose the two pins (the Shift key is not needed). Right-click and select Connect. It gets done without any dragging of the mouse.

If your wire needs to connect multiple pins, Auto Connect multi points is your option. Select this button, choose all pins to be connected, right-click and select Connect. You will have all pins shorted now.

The Auto Connect to Bus option is the one I use the most. It not only connects the selected pin to a bus but also names wires as per the bus name. So, a wire connected to a bus TEST_ABC_DATA[0..5] will automatically get aliases like TEST_ABC_DATA0, TEST_ABC_DATA1, TEST_ABC_DATA2, and so on.

Do try out these connectivity features and let us know if you find them helpful.

Team DesignTech

Cadence Design Systems