CircuitSpace

For automatic PCB component placement

Component placement is time consuming and has traditionally proven to be difficult to automate. With component counts on the rise and 10,000 part boards becoming commonplace, managing placement is a difficult task and can take months to complete.

Through a patented approach, CircuitSpace™ breaks down the current 'click and drag' placement tedium and accelerates the whole design process. CircuitSpace seamlessly integrates with Cadence® Allegro® or Cadence OrCAD® PCB Editor and allows users to achieve board layouts in a fraction of the time it would take to complete by hand.

Double the components. Half the design time.

CircuitSpace implements a hierarchical approach to printed circuit board design through enhanced autoclustering™ and replication technologies. CircuitSpace also expedites the design process through the use of template generation for global library usage across divisions, template usage with and without etch, automated layout reference designator propagation and automated change report between layout designs.

Key benefits

Improves communication between EE and layout designers
Shortens design cycle timeline by weeks
Works seamlessly within existing design methodologies

Featured capabilities
AutoClustering
Creates clusters, functional groups of components, based on the design information:

By Schematic - support for CIS, HDL and DxDesigner
By ROOM - property previously assigned

New clusters are drawn above the board. Clusters with a FIXED part are placed around the FIXED part. Addenda clusters are children clusters for an existing cluster. Parent property auto-assigned, which identifies the parent cluster.

Replicate Cluster
Creates as many replicas of the source clusters net topology from the available parts in scope. All resulting instances that exactly match the source are assigned the template tag of the source cluster. All resulting instances that partially match the source are assigned a synchronization tag.

Modify Placement and Propagate
Instantiates source cluster's placement and cluster shape changes to targets. Placement Changes that may be propagated include Component , RefDes text , Size , and Layer.

Reference Designator Propagation
CircuitSpace will propagate a source clusters reference designator text locations to target clusters. Text that can be propagated on the RefDes layers include Silkscreen_Top, Silkscreen_Bottom, Assembly_Top , Assembly_Bottom, Display_Top, and Display_Bottom.

Checkpoint Compare Report
Save a design checkpoint at anytime and compare it against other checkpoints (for example, compare old netlist to new netlist). Compare Summary and Detailed tables for Components, Nets, and Clusters. The report format can either be html or .csv.

Modify Cluster Membership
A way for the user a to change the existing membership of a cluster and if chosen, propagate that change to other clusters.

Revise and Propagate - the membership and placement changes to specified target clusters
Edit Membership - changes the source cluster's component membership
Edit Etch - changes the source cluster's etch membership. Etch can be added and/or removed