Placement tools in CAE packages?

[Guy Fawkes]

What component placement tools are available to a designer in CAE packages
apart from rats nests? Although rats nests are helpfull, I find the
ultimately insufficient to aid in proper placement of components. Some also
have histograms which show the density of connections I believe.

Guy



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[Leon]

Guy Fawkes wrote:

What component placement tools are available to a designer in CAE packages
apart from rats nests? Although rats nests are helpfull, I find the
ultimately insufficient to aid in proper placement of components. Some also
have histograms which show the density of connections I believe.

Pulsonix has a lot of flexibility in how the placement parameters are
set up:

"The Auto Place option provides full automatic component placement,
with a set of features that allow you to control how the placement is
carried out. When placing components, the placement functions will
consider pre-placed parts (often connectors, LEDs, etc.), keepout areas
and automatic surface mount device recognition."

It does quite a good job, and allows sufficient room for routing tracks
between components.

http://www.pulsonix.com

Leon

 

[colin_toogood@yahoo.com]

Leon wrote:

Guy Fawkes wrote:
What component placement tools are available to a designer in CAE packages
apart from rats nests? Although rats nests are helpfull, I find the
ultimately insufficient to aid in proper placement of components. Some also
have histograms which show the density of connections I believe.


Pulsonix has a lot of flexibility in how the placement parameters are
set up:

"The Auto Place option provides full automatic component placement,
with a set of features that allow you to control how the placement is
carried out. When placing components, the placement functions will
consider pre-placed parts (often connectors, LEDs, etc.), keepout areas
and automatic surface mount device recognition."

It does quite a good job, and allows sufficient room for routing tracks
between components.

http://www.pulsonix.com

Leon

You have forgotten the first rule.
"All autorouters are crap allthough some are less crap than others"

What would be better is if the auto placement were done on the fly.
Rather than trying to automate the solution, which is virtually
impossible, one could place a device and the tool could try and place
the devices which are connected to it using its knowledge of how many
devices are "behind" the next device etc.. That way the designer spends
his time finding the solution with the tool presenting him with what
the problem is.

Colin

 

[Leon]

colin_toogood@yahoo.com wrote:

Leon wrote:
Guy Fawkes wrote:
What component placement tools are available to a designer in CAE packages
apart from rats nests? Although rats nests are helpfull, I find the
ultimately insufficient to aid in proper placement of components. Some also
have histograms which show the density of connections I believe.


Pulsonix has a lot of flexibility in how the placement parameters are
set up:

"The Auto Place option provides full automatic component placement,
with a set of features that allow you to control how the placement is
carried out. When placing components, the placement functions will
consider pre-placed parts (often connectors, LEDs, etc.), keepout areas
and automatic surface mount device recognition."

It does quite a good job, and allows sufficient room for routing tracks
between components.

http://www.pulsonix.com

Leon

You have forgotten the first rule.
"All autorouters are crap allthough some are less crap than others"

What would be better is if the auto placement were done on the fly.
Rather than trying to automate the solution, which is virtually
impossible, one could place a device and the tool could try and place
the devices which are connected to it using its knowledge of how many
devices are "behind" the next device etc.. That way the designer spends
his time finding the solution with the tool presenting him with what
the problem is.

I thought we were talking about auto-placement! The Pulsonix
auto-router does a good job as well, better than any other autorouter
I've used.

Leon