Defending Allegro

Hi Bill,
I'm an old Pads hand, and saw it's progression from the days of DOS to Windows on PowerPCB. It's an adequate tool. It does get the job done.

But the capacity built into Allegro is hands down, far and away, orders of magnitude more powerful than PowerPCB. Ease of use aside, as both tools have their pros and cons, Allegro has WAY more flexibility and depth.

[caveat; I've been using Allegro solely for the last 5 years and haven't seen the latest developments in PowerPCB, so they may have improved things; like, remove the maximum 20 or so routing layer limit; improved the padstack editor; etc.]

As far as task time goes, initially, the user will buck at using Allegro, because it seems it takes longer to do everything (designers can be that way when faced with change...). Of course if you have the patience to get over the steeper learning curve, things improve dramatically. At least they have for me.


You will also have all the library conversion issues to contend with, as well legacy database conversion if you want to go all the way. That's another issue altogether. Will be happy to chat about it offline if you've found this helpful.

Thanks
Andrew

Andrew Noonan
CAE, PCB Design
Cisco Systems, Inc.
225 East Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134 USA
Direct: 408.853-7785
annoonan@cisco.com
www.cisco.com

Ha!

Ask the designer to 'mod' in 50 series resistors into a 1200 pin BGA part! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Then see how long it takes to add it to Allegro. That's just one case.

Ask him to print the screen display on the fly. Point 2.

Ask the designer to selectively thermal relieve only one pin on a 12 pin header. Point 3

Ask the PADS man to do a subtle pinout change to a 96 pin BGA (like reconfiguring 12 pins... should be simple, right?)

Ask him to add 20 or so bypass caps around some QFP devices.

See when you ECO changes to PADS, it RIPS!!!!!!!! out the existing routing for the whole net, unless you take exhasting recautions. Not like simply reading in a new netlist and rerouting ONLY THE CHANGES!. HAHAHAHA

Now have him change the footprint name of a part, update it, and verify it. Compare it to allegro's refresh_symbol.

Subtle things, but fun.

I use both PADS and Allegro. As was stated, the quick-n-dirty routines are very easy with PADS. The intense stuff, I prefer Allegro HANDS-DOWN!

Good day.

Mitch

Don't use Pads, use Altium Designer ....

Altium Designer is the old 'protel' brand... it has come on leaps and bounds in the last 5 years, eg, the rules set. You can have any rule from any item to any other item quickly and simply.. in minutes

The cost of Pads, the technology of Allegro, only with common sense thrown in. It has a learning curve akin to climbing a small mound rather that the peak of everest!!

Cadstar, Pads & AD can do 99.9% of what Allegro does and can do it in a fraction of the time... Allegro IMHO is not finacially viable & anyone who says it is maybe just trying to justify their own finacial decisions/disasters!

Our cost of one seat of AD is half the price of the yearly maintenance on one seat of Allegro ... people seem to want to justify Allegro's price for the fact it does this that & the other... well woopee dooo ... so do the others!

As far as a bureau tool.. Allegro is just plain awfull.....

**rant over**

btw 25 yrs experience with Cadstar, Pads, AD & Allegro....

Howdy,

>> the technology of Allegro
This statement is nowhere near accurate if [A]ltium [D]esigner is the reference. Length matching, XNETS, diff pairs, keep-out definitions, no subclasses which relates to gerber files and printing for assembly & fab drawings, and reviews.

>> Cadstar, Pads & AD can do 99.9% of what Allegro does
maybe all three of them put together.., but I do not yet know Cadstar and am only vaguely familiar with Pads.

>> it in a fraction of the time
is not possible with AD. AD's online DRC implementation alone adds a long wait time which greatly reduces productivity and this reduction is exponential with board size. The online DRC can be turned of but there is an "Analyzing [every single net]" that AD performs when a connection is made that is also an exponential time hog that cannot be turned off.

Comparatively, AD has more than its fair share of serious bugs and the not-so-serious ones are too many to count. There seem to be work-arounds for everything with AD and I believe that is why so many of its flaws have propogated for so long to the current version. Another disconcerting factor is that AD breaks at least ten times more of its features than Allegro does when a new version is released and there is no switch to allow any of the previous version's command behavior in a newer version of AD.
A proficient Allegro user may find difficulties learning Altium even with the more friendly interface.
Scripts with Altium are not like scripts with Allegro but more like Allegro's skill files where an understanding of programming languages is a must.

I admit there are some really advantageous features with Altium and that if you are on your own with limited funds AD is really not a bad way to go. I do recommend adding AD to your arsenal if funds and time allow as it has been a relatively easy adaptation for me.
But,
I find it hard to believe that Pads would not be a better alternative than Altium.
However, when and if I find myself on my own again, I will currently pay for an Altium license and use the profits to get back to Allegro because I do not yet know Pads.

My point is that I believe Altium to Allegro is like taking surface streets instead of the freeways. Maybe the same could be said for Pads to Allegro...

Cheers!
Drew

Umm ..

Interesting Drew & I respect your opinion. I guess its a case of favouring what you know best. Sure AD has a few bugs as any piece of software does, but certainly no showstoppers....

My biggest problem is that I do not know Allegro well enough to give a constructive opinion, its the learning curve and unfriendlyness of it all that to me seems so uneccassary, and to a point Cadence have shot themselves in the foot as it makes it an unviable system to learn when your getting pressured by the MD to go 'faster faster' !!