Pulsonix releases enhanced PCB design software
The company has rewritten the underlying graphics engine to utilize standard DirectX graphics used in the gaming industry. This speeds up many PCB design operations including design rule checking (DRC), copper filling and Gerber file generation, the company said.
“Many of our customers are building significantly more complex designs resulting in the need for fast and efficient PCB design tools,” said Bob Williams, marketing director for Pulsonix.
“With these changes, some of our large designs are displaying up to 2.5 times faster,” said Olaf Hollinger at Carl Zeiss AG. In addition, multi-threading capabilities have been extended and added to many functions, meaning that speed is significantly increased on features that are processor intensive and that can utilize parallel processing. “We’ve seen many improvements in this area,” added Hollinger. “As an example, we’ve seen DRCs that can be more than four times faster with multi-threading using my eight cores.”
Some of the other enhancements to version 11.0 include:
Same Net Via to SMD Check – This feature helps avoid technological problems during soldering of SMD components by ensuring a sufficient solder mask bridge between SMD pads and vias.
Back Drilling for High-Speed Designs – Using an easily created rule set, back drilling can be defined for critical nets that require the removal of unwanted via or component pin stubs on through-holes. This can significantly reduce signal integrity issues and signal distortion.
Differential Pair Rules – The ability to create differential pairs from rules automates a typically manual and time-consuming process, especially when working on designs with hundreds of differential pairs.
Creepage Rules – These were introduced to calculate creepage paths for critical nets. This is needed to validate safety rules for specific designs, e.g., in medical devices.
Extended Character Set (Unicode) – Extended character and internationalization support using the Unicode standard has been added, as well as character sets for languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Williams the co-founder of WestDev ran the Cadstar product group and was worldwide distribution channel manager for Zuken between 1984 and 1997 the point at which WestDev was formed. Pulsonix was founded in 2001 and is a division of WestDev Ltd.
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