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This article originates from Sunrise Big data and is compiled by ChipSourceTek. The information has not been officially confirmed and is only for exchange and learning.

Time:2023-06-24 Views:894

On some forums, I often see many people who, like everyone else, are engaged in PCB work, or have worked in this job before. They complain about the lack of prospects, and even jokingly call PCB engineers just pulling strings. Hehe, it‘s a humorous metaphor; But as a PCB engineer who has also had discussions before, I have to remind newcomers who are about to enter this industry not to misunderstand and accept such views.

Firstly, every profession produces a champion, not to mention engineers in the electronics industry. If you have the ability, you can still only work as a PCB and receive a salary of over 1W. Why? Of course, you need to be very excellent, and being a very excellent PCB engineer is not that easy. You need to learn a lot of things, such as EMC, ESD,... It‘s not as simple as imagining that just learning to operate one or two software can connect wires.

Secondly, the PCB part is equally crucial and important in the electronics industry as principle design. If you are interested, you can also learn design theory from engineers who design schematic diagrams. Of course, this requires your own efforts. Our company had a PCB engineer who often communicated and studied with schematic design engineers, or hardware engineers, but later switched to design one year later;

Once again, as much as you learn, you will definitely receive as much value as you should, and this is definitely not wrong; Relatively speaking, some small companies, due to the low quality requirements of their products, only require PCB engineers at the level of deployment. Therefore, the requirements for PCB engineers are inevitably not high. Therefore, they naturally believe that PCB engineers play a small role in the entire process of the product line, and the labor cost will definitely not be high; Furthermore, after all, it must be acknowledged that PCB engineers are generally not as skilled as hardware engineers in their work. However, for friends who have just started working and do not have good qualifications (including education, experience, and skills), PCB is undoubtedly one of the easiest jobs to get started in the technology industry; By the way, our company‘s CEO and R&D Director started from PCB.

No one forces you to do PCB for a lifetime, but learning PCB is definitely beneficial for you. A design engineer who is very familiar with PCB design will definitely have a lot of advantages over ordinary design engineers.

There are many eda software circulating on the market now, and their advantages and disadvantages vary. Let‘s just talk about the most commonly used and widely used ones

1. Protel

Undoubtedly, it is the earliest eda software to come into contact with. In most universities, there are courses on protel software. However, it must be admitted that protel is indeed one of the lowest end software in the eda software family. It is easy to make single panel and two-layer boards, but it starts to feel difficult to use in four layers, let alone more layers. If faced with high-frequency and high-speed multi-layer boards, People who can use protel to make high-quality boards are quite good:

It is uncertain whether protel will be phased out in the future. There is still a considerable market for people using protel now, but it is recommended that you start learning other software with better functions as soon as possible

2. Pads

PowerPCB, which I call the crownless king of low-end PCBs, is the most excellent software among all low-end PCBs. It is easy to use, easy to get started, and the quality of the boards produced is not inferior to that of wg, Allegro, and others. Currently, the most widely used eda software in the market is suitable for the needs of most small and medium-sized enterprises

3. Orcad

The PCB of orcad is even worse than protel, but the schematic design part of orcad, capture CIS, is considered one of the best schematic tools in the industry. The interface is beautiful, easy to use, easy to operate, and simulation functions are powerful. If compared to dxdesigner in terms of usage, I think it is advantageous, but dx has very good management functions, integrated environment, schematic reuse, and other functions

4. Wg

Mentor‘s latest product, WG2004, is based on the Windows platform. While there is no significant difference in functionality between several mid to high end software, only the software with the coolest cable is good. WG2004 is the software with the coolest cable and is known as the king of cable. Its automatic wiring function is very powerful, and the wiring rule design is very professional. The expeditionPCB is the core part of WG‘s PCB, WG2004 includes three parts: epd2004&library manager&expeditionPCB

5. En

As a product of Mentor Company, the latest EN2004 is based on the Unix platform and there are no Chinese textbooks available on the market, making it difficult for many people to learn the software; Its level of expertise determines that it is not suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises, especially small ones. Without this need, why climb mountains and travel long distances to get the fire that can be extinguished with just a bowl of water? Right? Moreover, this software is originally designed for large enterprises, so friends who do not have this need do not need to bother and work hard. If work requires it, it is another matter. Its PCB is still expeditionPCB, The schematic diagram is epd2004, which is basically no different from wg. Its most important aspect is the integrated management system
6. Allegro

Schematic design software:

It‘s OK to know ORCAD. It supports more Netlists and is basically the De facto standard.

PCB Layout software

1. Protel

Now push Altium Designer. The mainstream of low-end design in China is largely unused abroad. Easy to learn, suitable for beginners, easy to get started; It occupies a lot of system resources and requires high computer configuration requirements. There is still a considerable market for people using protel in China, as the hardware circuit design of small and medium-sized companies is mostly low-end. However, it is recommended that you get in touch with and learn other software with better functions as soon as possible, and not always hover at the low level, as it is not very salary friendly!

2. PADS

There are also quite a few people using PADS software, which is easy to use and easy to get started. Personally, I feel that it is many times better than Protel. Suitable for mid to low end designs, it can be called the uncrowned king of the low end. The most widely used eda software in the market today is suitable for the needs of most small and medium-sized enterprises. It does not have its own simulation, so when making high-speed boards, it is necessary to combine other specialized simulation tools, such as hyperlynx.

3. Cadence Allegro

The actual industry standard in high-speed board design. In every aspect, it‘s amazing. The PCB Layout tool is absolutely top-notch, and once you become a little familiar with it, you no longer want to use other tools. The wiring is super cool. The simulation is also very good. It has its own simulation tools, and can do Signal integrity simulation and Power integrity simulation. Firmly occupying a dominant position in the production of PCB high-speed boards. You should know that 60% of computer motherboards and 40% of mobile phone motherboards in this world are all drawn with Allegro! Now when I make boards, whether simple or complex, I use this one. The small board can be completed in one day. It‘s quite refreshing to use it well.

4 Mentor WG

Slightly inferior to CADENCE, but also a top-level tool, targeting high-end circuit design, with its own simulation tools. However, in China, there are relatively few support providers, not as many as Cadence.

Protel For Windows	PCAD EDA For Windows	CADENCE Allegro	PADS PowerPCB
Hardware requirements	586 more than IBM PC compatible, minimum 128MB RAM	586 more than IBM PC compatible, minimum 64MB RAM	586 more than IBM PC compatible, minimum 128MB RAM	586 more than IBM PC compatible, minimum 64MB RAM
work environment	Win 95/3.1/NT	Win 95/3.1/NT	WinNT/2K Unix	windows
Ease of operation of interface and instructions	Very friendly, extremely simple	simple and easy	Cumbersome	simple and easy
Design Architecture	simulation 32bit	real mode 32 bit AP	32bit	32bit
Schematic	have	have	have（optional Orcad）	have（optional ）
Removable Error ID	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Analog Digital Signal Simulation	Yes	Yes	Outsourcing	Outsourcing
density analysis	have	No have	No have	No have
Preview of components	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Global editing function (Global)	Yes	No	No	No
Maximum Board Size	80“x80”	60“x60”	Based on the resolution of the cell, if it is 2, it is millions of square inches	50“x50”
Layout level settings	32 storey	infinite layer	infinite layer	60 storey
signal layer	20 storey	32 storey	108 electrical layer	16 storey
Circuit diagram VS PCB	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes（choose）
On Line DRC	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
DXFin&Laye limitations	Restricted Inclusion	Unlimited Inclusion	unlimited	Restricted purchase
Pro-Einterface	Outsourcing	Yes	Yes	choose
Polygon Arc	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Polygon Void	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Component search function	Strong, query range can be across the entire hard drive or even the entire network of the user‘s company	Yes (not strong)	No (relatively weak)	Yes (but not strong)
Design of Plate and Frame	The software provides 10 types of boards that can be manually drawn and loaded into DXF files	Can only be manually drawn and loaded into DXF files	Can only be manually drawn and loaded into DXF files	Can only be manually drawn and loaded into DXF files
ICT automatic testing data for test machine	Yes	Yes	Option (performance)	option
Pre Autoroute	Yes	Yes	Yes	choose
Including CAM software	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Signal integrity	Yes	Yes	option	choose
Node lock Price	NT 310,000	NT350,000	Us$16000	NT650,000
Network Price	No	NT437,000		NT810,000
project	Protel 99se	P-CAD 2001	CADENCE Allegro	Power pcb 4.0
Power Logic	have	have	have	have﹝choose﹞
Dynamic Route Editor	have	have	have	have
Auto Dimension	have	have	have	have
EMC Line sim	have﹝choose﹞	have	have﹝choose﹞	have﹝choose﹞
EMC Board sim	have﹝choose﹞	have	have﹝choose﹞	have﹝choose﹞
Continuity of old data	Only Win version compatible	have	Unix only, Win version compatible	Only Win version compatible
Layer Settings	32 layer electrical layer, 16 layer plane layer, 16 layer mechanism marking layer, and other internal text layer and steel plate layer	999 floors, 990 floors Electrical layer	108 electrical layers, unlimited non electrical layers	250 floors in total, 64 electrical floors
DXF LINK	have	have	have	have﹝choose﹞
Pro-E LINK	have﹝choose﹞	have	have	have﹝choose﹞
Edit	have	have	have	have﹝choose﹞
3D PCB Viewer	have	not have	not have	have﹝choose﹞
UnDo/ReDo	Strong, even if the file has been saved, it is still available, and it is convenient to edit the undo/redo times	Yes (customization is quite cumbersome and not very powerful)	not have	have（But not strong）
Design accuracy	0.001Mil	0.1Mil	0.0001Mil	0.01Mil
Name of custom layer	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automatic avoidance of obstacles	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automatic wiring support for pre wiring	strong	have	have	no have
Design rule support for automatic wiring	strong	have	have	have
Design Browser	have（And strong）	no have	no have	no have
Digital Simulation	Yes	Yes	Optional	Optional
Custom level	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cancellation of rules	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
The shape of tears	Line/Arc	have	have	have
Teardrop removal	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

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This article originates from Sunrise Big data and is compiled by ChipSourceTek. The information has not been officially confirmed and is only for exchange and learning.