16.6 2015 Release

The Cadence^® Allegro^® 16.6 release has continually provided improvements and updates through Quarterly Incremental Releases (QIRs). The latest release, Allegro 16.6-2015, includes new improvements and products to help PCB designers achieve maximum efficiency and productivity while keeping ownership costs low.

Allegro PCB Designer Manufacturing Option

The Allegro PCB Designer Manufacturing Option is a comprehensive, powerful, easy-to-use suite of tools that makes it efficient for PCB designers to streamline the development of release-to-manufacturing packages for their products. It includes three modules: Design for Manufacturing (DFM) Checker, Documentation Editor, and Panel Editor.

DFM Checker

Allegro PCB Designer Manufacturing Option’s DFM Checker module is a suite of manufacturing analysis tools that helps engineers and designers ensure no fabrication-related issues are present before sending the design off for fabrication, thereby helping to avoiding fabrication-related delays, additional costs, and re-work.

Documentation Editor

Allegro PCB Designer Manufacturing Option’s Documentation Editor module is a PCB documentation-authoring tool that intelligently automates your documentation creation process to produce complex PCB documentation in a fraction of the time versus traditional methods. Documentation Editor enables you to quickly create the manufacturing drawings that drive PCB fabrication and assembly.

Panel Editor

Allegro PCB Designer Manufacturing Option’s Panel Editor module intelligently automates the complex process of panel definition and documentation, simplifying the design process. This solution enables designers to quickly create electronic manufacturing documents that clearly articulate the panel specification and instructions for successful fabrication, assembly, and inspection of their designs.

Allegro Rules Developer and Checker

Allegro Rules Developer and Checker allows you to develop custom fabrication and assembly rules to extend capabilities provided by Allegro PCB Designer and the Manufacturing Option. This tool provides a relational geometric verification language designed specifically for creating rules that are proprietary and custom to an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). The rules can be viewed and executed from the Allegro Constraint Manager, making it a single source for all design rules checks (DRCs) within a PCB.

New Allegro 16.6-2015 Release Capabilities

Major feature updates include:

• New shape editing environment as a dedicated application mode focused on improving boundary editing. Context menu or single-pick execution mode command access for slide edges with corners, chamfer/round corners, join edges, add notches, and multi-segment movement
• Ability to add ground current return path vias to differential pairs during Add Connect. User can select from one of many configurations supported with parameters.
• Adjust spacing: During route engine-assisted auto-connect routing, users can compress spreading of traces in the trunk of a set of signals. It will also nudge/push existing traces.
• Snake routing improvements for fine-pitch BGAs allow users to route quickly, easily, and with ability to restart from a previously routed path
• Off-angle routing
  • Users can now very quickly create off-angle routes to avoid FR4 fiber weave coupling and achieve better impedance control
  • Auto-interactive Phase Tuning (AiPT) now supports bumps on off-angle routes
• Improved arc support in routing
  • Improved support for push-n-shove with arcs
  • AiPT arcs on tuning bumps
  • Auto-interactive Delay Tuning (AiDT) supports arcs on tuning bumps

The following capabilities are now available in Allegro PCB Designer (base):

• Extended net (Xnet) creation
• Differential-pair dynamic phase control
• Detecting segment over voids for possible return path problems
• Spread lines between anti-pads to manage return path issues particularly under fine-pitch BGAs
• Hug contour routing on flexible PCBs
• Line fattening
• Signal Explorer for topology design and control