I'll do the Cadint comparison. I've been using it for nearly 6 years now. Jesse Lackey wrote: > Hello, I've been using eagle professional for 3-ish years, and while I > recommend it, it has limitations that I'm running into as my designs > get more complex. I'm looking into both orcad and protel next year. > > Orcad looks to be $10K for the "unison" suite, schematic, pcb, > simulator, autorouter. > > Altium is in the $8K range for similar setup. Ranges in price from free trial version through about 11K for the full blown unlimited version with autorouter. Lots of options in between and they have a competitive upgrade program that will ease the pain if you are already using something similar. > Specific shortcomings with Eagle: > > 1) re-use of parts of designs. You can cut & paste the schematic, but > can't get the layout as well. This is a problem for dc/dcs, where > layout is critical. No problem here, I do this all the time. Schematic and Layout block export nicely. > 2) while it supports 16 layers, small missing features makes even 4 > somewhat tedious. My designs often have 3 different grounds (one has > 6!) and creating the polygons for doing the fills involves a lot of > clicking. (6 shapes done 4 times, or some significant hassle/hacks to > make them copyable). Things like a "keepout" and "restrict" layer > only applies to top & bottom; to have similar in inner layers is > another hack. 32 Layers max. There are very minor differences between outside and inside layers. There are silk, glue, paste, soldermask, gold, copper, jumper, pick&place, mechanical outline and three user defined layers associated with the top and bottom layers. Inner layers are just copper. Lots of keep in/out polygon types and it is very easy to copy from layer to layer (inner layers included). I had one design with 9 different grounds and had no trouble. Hierarchical and flat designs are easily accommodated so step and repeat of sub circuits is no big deal. I'm pretty sure all of this is accessible in the pin limited free version. > 3) libraries are somewhat dated and incomplete, and I often find > little things like diode polarity indication is on the "document" > layer, so it doesn't come out on the board silkscreen. As far as I've been able to tell, everybody's libraries are dated and incomplete. Like Olin, I just create my own parts. No big deal. > 4) things like panelization and BOM generation / management are > primitive and essentially not documented. Example: can't have a user > tag with a part so the digikey/mouser p/n is kept with it. Again, > there are awkward workarounds, but they are workarounds and not a > fundamental feature. I haven't tried any tricky panelization so I don't know about that. BOM generation is pretty good. I can add fields to my heart's content. If I want a field called "IN HOUSE P/N" or "MOUSER P/N" I just add it. > 5) autorouter seems ok (I don't have the experience to say) but there > is little control over rules for it. It isn't practical to say "all > power and ground must be 16 mils" because then pin connections to > fine-pitch devices fail. There is no way to categorize nets to say > "all these should be in this area", or "over this ground", etc. Haven't used the router yet. Try me in a month or so. > Anyway. I've done 30+ designs with it, and am happy with it, but I'm > starting to hit the wall. If you have the money, and expect to do > serious designs - meaning 300+ components, 4-layer+ boards, need > simulation, using 256-ball BGAs and don't feel like doing your own > "escape pattern" by hand over and over, etc. - I'd look beyond Eagle. One downside is no simulation. On the other hand, Cadint can import from lots of other packages and has some 3D modeling capability (I haven't figured out a use for that yet) as well. Dave -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist