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
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.
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
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
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