Stats

  • State Not Answered
  • Replies 4
  • Subscribers 44
  • Views 9561
  • Members are here 0
More Content

Cross Probe between Schematic and Layout

DesignTech

In the PCB design process, the board layout is a tedious task. Accurate placement of hundreds of components, routing the nets, and defining attributes and constraints in the layout is a tough job.

It is much easier to find parts and nets in a schematic than in the layout. You might often be working on a symbol or a net in the PCB board and want to check something on the same object in the schematic.

In such cases, cross-probing comes very handy. Intertool Communication (ITC) allows bi-directional communication between the OrCAD Capture schematic and the Allegro PCB Editor board. It enables designers to select design objects such as nets, pins, or components in the schematic, and the same gets highlighted on the board or vice versa.

Here, selecting a component in the schematic in OrCAD Capture immediately snaps you to a closeup of the same component in the layout in Allegro PCB Editor. This simple feature saves designers a great deal of time and energy that would have been spent searching for the component.

This feature has many applications, like just searching and highlighting an object in both schematic and board to compare properties, etc.

It also allows you to place components on the board by selecting them in the schematic. For this, open the placement window in Allegro PCB Editor and choose the parts in Capture you want to place on the board. Selecting the part in the schematic will attach its board symbol to the mouse pointer allowing you to place it on the board.

Team DesignTech

Cadence Design Systems

Parents
  • djs42
    0

    Use this all of the time. I do have a question/suggestion: add an easily accessible command within Allegro/PCB Designer to toggle the Intertool Communication (ITC) on/off. With very dense designs often some routing needs to be performed during placement. If ITC is enabled in Capture on high pin count nets and routing is performed in the PCB tool the schematic hangs and often causes issues within the PCB tool as well.

  • DesignTech
    0 in reply to djs42

    Thanks for the feedback. Even now, you can disable ITC for global nets in Capture. Generally it is only a global net which is present on multiple pages and its cross probing can impact the tool performance.

Reply
  • DesignTech
    0 in reply to djs42

    Thanks for the feedback. Even now, you can disable ITC for global nets in Capture. Generally it is only a global net which is present on multiple pages and its cross probing can impact the tool performance.

Children
  • DPGDA
    0 in reply to DesignTech

    Hi,

    I've been trying to use the option to disable ITC for global nets in the Extended Preferences Setup in Design Entry CIS, but I cannot see any difference in cross-probing behavior. While working on the layout in Cadence Allegro, selecting or routing any global net like GND starts opening of all pages of the schematic which ends up with hanging of whole Design Entry CIS.

    I've already prepared the keyboard shortcut to toggle the ITC in Cadence Allegro, but it would be nice if it could work without thinking about toggling the key but cross-probing everything except for the global nets which hang the application. 

    Can you help whether anything shall be configured more than deselecting the "Enable Global Net ICT" and how it should work? As I see now, it works in the direction from Capture CIS to PCB Editor - global nets are not highlighted on the PCB anymore, but the proplem still exists in the direction from PCB Editor to Capture CIS.

  • Jeet
    0 in reply to DPGDA

    Which version and hotfix of the tool you are using?

    I tried the same on 23.1 S004 and after disabling Global Net ITC in Extended Preferences and selecting any global net like GND in PCB Editor is not opening all the schematic pages in Capture.

     

Cadence Guidelines

Community Guidelines

The Cadence Design Communities support Cadence users and technologists interacting to exchange ideas, news, technical information, and best practices to solve problems and get the most from Cadence technology. The community is open to everyone, and to provide the most value, we require participants to follow our Community Guidelines that facilitate a quality exchange of ideas and information. By accessing, contributing, using or downloading any materials from the site, you agree to be bound by the full Community Guidelines.