Defending Allegro

Hey Drew, PADS is good to know for a contract position. It's easy to make lots of money to compliment what you make with Allegro. And folks are so used dealing with PADS it's easy to get work, once you're good with the tool. All agreed.

But, if you get frustrated doing simple things over and over because you can't seem to get the tool to do what might seem simple (for allegro), you'll be frustrated. Go back to my message from 6/09, read it, and think if the points are easy with Allegro. I'm still swapping a 1200 pin BGA with a 1500 pin BGA (2 days), and should have it routed tomorrow. THEN! I can 'batch' run the DRCs and check my routing. Oh! so much fun.

PADS, Allegro, Altium? I don't care. The tool companies are only after the FINAL $$$, and with excessive 'updates' (show-stoppers) it gets very cumbersome staying current with the tools and STILL get 500-2000 component designs done. You got to learn to stay current. Tools are just another line on the resume.

Oops, now I'll step off my soapbox. $20 says the tool question will continue on year-after-year.

Good day.
Mitch

Hi Drew,

If you are going to be guided by anything I've said then I'd rather not lead you astray, if you want an independent opinion of PADS as it relates more specifically to your requirement's then mail me at bdavis@bluearc.com with any questions. I've been using PADS since 1988 so have a reasonable handle on it.

Bob D.

Cartouche,

I agree there are no "showstoppers" but any one competent designer knowing both tools will spend more time using Altium as opposed to Allegro. More so now with Altium's 6.3 version. Being a current Altium user and even though I favor "Allegro" as you correctly point out, I must acknowledge the users in Altium's forum seem tolerant and have been quite helpful.
However, since Altium is more like an annoying child's toy in my optinion and Allegro is too expensive for me to be of use, I am thinking more seriously about Pads than Altium when my current contract expires. Maybe even partly due to the post by Redfish.
I will try to shut up now.

Cheers!
Drew - Knowing the tool is supposed to be half the battle.

Speaking as a fairly new user of Allegro, (I'm still going through the pain of transition from PADS), I would make the following comments. Firstly, if you are upgrading from a BASIC pads installation to Allegro then you are streets ahead, if you are upgrading from a fully configured PADS seat then you are probably still ahead, but only just. Bare in mind that a fully configured PADS seat costs a small fraction of a top end Allegro at full list price, (as someone already mentioned, about the same as your Allegro support conract)

I can understand the guy's frustration if he's only spent a little time on Allegro, the user interface is very primative for what is supposed to be a high end tool, and full of holes for what should be very basic editing functions, it's nice that the interface is user configurable but it shouldn't HAVE to be before you can use it efficiently, (and it's not the most robust piece of software I've ever used). There are very few things that you can do in Allegro that you can't do in PADS, (and I would guess Cadstar, haven't used it for a good few years but PADS and Cadstar were always about neck and neck), some things are easier and some aren't.

The real winner for us, and the reason we changed over, is the use of constraint manager and the ability to set up the design from Concept HDL, (I won't tell you what our engineers feel about that tool however, as it just wouldn't be polite :)), PADS does have the ability to constrain a design in many of the same ways, (but not enough), and it is so unwieldy to do that setting up and controlling all the interactions required make it virtually unusable.

The upshot is that if you want to just do board designs, (of any complexity), then PADS is one of the best tools on the market, it's cheap, (relatively), it's easy to use, (although you'd be surprised how few people seem to know how to use it properly :), it's stable, (or was until Mentor started playing with it!), basically it just works. If you want a powerful integrated, (and I use the term loosely), system then Allegro is some way ahead.

Bob D.

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' !!