http://www.diptrace.com
Rating: Two Thumbs Up!
Diptrace is a full featured software package for PCB design, layout, and manufacturing. It has all the features one would expect, along with many advanced features such as autorouter, autoplace components, DRC (Design Rule Check), electra / spectra integration and much more.
The Selling Point:
I'll cut to the chase - Diptrace's functionality and user interface are the most intuitive and easy to use out of any other PCB software. Note that easy does not mean novice or beginner, but you can tell that the producers of this software have identified the flaws of many other programs. I've used numerous other PCB (Printed Circuit Board) Design programs including the "widespread" EAGLE and "industry standard" ORCAD, and while having access to all these, diptrace is now my default. Diptrace has the feel of a modern Windows XP era program that we've all come to love, not a ported-unix eyesore.
PRO'S
- User Friendly
- Intuitive Interface that is appealing and easy on the eyes.
- Pattern Based Footprints
- Cost Effective
- Auto Place Components
- Effective auto router included
- Commercial auto-router integration
- Time Saving Features
- Customer Support
FOOTPRINTS
In most PCB CAD packages, nothing annoys more than the tedious task of making footprints, especially when you get in the 100+ pin footprints that are completely symmetrical, and you have to manually place every pad. Low and behold the first innovation of Diptrace I discovered, PATTERNS IN FOOTPRINTS! Heres an example for making a 100 pin TQFP: you input the pad dimension for all the pads which are the same, then specify pitch, number of pins, and a square pattern, spacing, and you're done! It takes 20 seconds - Incredible! In Eagle I would have to place every pin individually and tediously to get it right. Another great feature I loved was the ability to rename pins in an array fasion. You can select the pins in your footprint and renumber them (and add prefixes / postfixes) by rows descending, horizontally, any way you want. Also, you can separate you footprint into different layers much like you would if photoshop for organization and editing. Its convenient to place silkscreen outlines on new layers.
COMPONENTS
As with the footprints - you have the same luxury of creating them using pattens, then when connecting the components to the footprints, Diptrace automatically recognizes that pin1 connect to eachother - and visually displays this with a ratsnest. Pins were also easy to name using the pin array names - for example portD on a microcontroller, I could select all the pins and use array names to prefix them with "PORTD" then label them descending if they were in that order, giving me PORTD0,PORTD1, and so on... Once again very intuitive, seamless, and most importantly time saving.
SCHEMATICS
Once again Diptrace presents a great intuitive user interface for laying out your schematic - most importantly however you want to do it. They include nice sheet templates for ANSI and ISO that you can use, and you can spread your schematic over multiple pages which are easy to flip through like you would excel spreadsheets - not using separate windows or files or menus. The component libraries that you make are easy to access - along with the extensive libraries of 50,000 parts already included. Its convenient that the schematics are easy to update when you make changes to parts without having to delete and rewire everything by right clicking on individual parts - or updating all parts associated with a library or the entire schematic. The Electrical Rule Check proved very useful, and performed much better than eagles and easier to configure. One thing I hate about eagle is the constant need to manually "redraw" the screen after making changes to get chages out of the way - this is not present in Diptrace and it works like you would expect it to. Also for those doing high-end designs and needing to do analysis, Diptrace contains spice parameters for components and can export a spice netlist for doing analysis.
PCB LAYOUT
It was a pleasure laying out my board using Diptrace - as it should be. After creating my schematic with 250 components and 600 pins, I hit "convert to PCB" and it takes me to the PCB program where my components are nicely spread out and ratsnested together with light blue lines. The first thing to do is define the boundaries of your board, which you can make any shape, but you can also specify "rectangle 4x6"" or define coordinates through a dialog. Also if you're not sure how big to make your board you can use the "arrange components" feature to neatly and quickly organize them in a compact manner. The first thing to do is place your absolute components such as connectors and "lock" them. Now you can use the effective "auto-place" feature to place the rest of the components in an efficient way. Another bonus is the smooth integration with electra / spectra autorouters. The included autorouter is by far better than Eagle's, and will route simpler layouts, but putting 250 components and 600+ pins on a 9 square inche 2 layer board requires a separate professional routing package, which diptrace integrates nicely with. One of the most time saving features with the PCB program is the ability to update single components or the entire board from the schematic. Many packages have a hard time when you change the schematic or can't compensate at all and you are stuck. Diptrace was 100% effective at being up to date with the schematic. Once again the Design Rule Check met all my manufacturing requirements and the board I made went through without troubles.
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
I emailed tech support with a question, and received a response within hours that was insightful and friendly. They also have a forum where they are active an participate. A++
TIPS
Go through the tutorial provided which will point out how to use many of the time saving features and get you jump started.
CONCLUSION
Diptrace offers everything you need for PCB schematic capture and layout in a single streamlined economical package that costs pennies to its competitors. It has a fantastic modern user interface and time saving features. Commitment to PCB design software is large as you invest lots of time to making libraries and schematics, and Diptrace will not disappoint. It should exceed your expectations, and will save you lots of valuable Time.
RATING
TODDS TWO THUMBS UP!
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