Re: Hierarchical PDF-printing with Mentor "IC Station Schematics"?

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LTSpice is free and Cadsoft never needed life support for Eagle. It just works, does not crash and does not cost an arm and a leg. So that's what I am using.

Don't need Cuba to get one:

Here we go again. I've never had PSpice (simulator) "crash" on me. Sometimes it will stop on an inability to find convergence... that usually turns out to be me inadvertently creating a circuit with a saddle point in the feedback ;-) ...Jim Thompson

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Doesn't do hierarchy, either.

I wasn't talking about 54 year old ones. ;-)

AFAIK you are using a legacy version, not 16.3 integrated Capture/PSpice combo. Which is pretty much what you must use if you buy or rent from Cadence today. Unless a newer one came out in the last month.

IME legacy software from many companies is generally better than the new stuff.

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Sure. 16.5 is out now. ;-)

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I know, but word on the street is that version 6 will have it and is due out as beta soon. Anyhow, my main concern with SW is crashes and Eagle doesn't do those. To me quality matter most, not features. With pretty much everything.

Well, a "real" '57 Chevy will be 54 years old no matter how you look at it. Of course you can also buy a souped up one, a hotrod.

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I stopped "updating" at v15.7, since there was no changes, except for $$$$ :-(

The Crapture GUI is the problem. Last I knew, you could still insist on getting PSpice Schematics.

Crapture was last "good" when it ran under DOS. I even used it back then :-) ...Jim Thompson

I don't want it :-)

Really! Hierarchical schematics is an absolute necessity to do IC designs. ...Jim Thompson

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See? So how can you say my computer is jinxed when you haven't even run the "new and improved" stuff?

I was told I had to get the suite with Capture if I wanted to run the latest PSpice A/D, which was necessary for compatibility reasons with my client. Also, schematic exchanges would have been a problem because 15.7 cannot read my client's schematics.

See? That's what I was saying all along :-)

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I only run Crapture "upon request". Mostly I just run a converter that translates PSpice Schematics to Crapture format.

And what have I been saying all along ?:-)

But you keep chanting that PSpice is the problem, when it isn't. ...Jim Thompson

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You've been saying RSN for a many iterations of 'S'. I'd love to ditch Crapture (not going to happen) but honestly, crashes are more annoying than destructive. It almost always recovers my session when it does. Now that OrCAD has fixed hierarchy, it's not *so* bad. 16.3 is even more stable (dragging large objects doesn't routinely crash it) than 15.7, though that really isn't saying much.

At least until a decade or so ago, they were still making them with the same tools.

I have a hard time convincing people of that. They seen no use for hierarchy. Some even do VHDL flat(ish)!

We got it while I was on vacation. I'm not in a hurry to have it installed. Enough got broken with the 16.3 install.

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Hierachy is broken in 15.7 (at least Crapture 15.7). I thought you said it was a requirement for your work.

I know. Even for board level stuff it is. Took a few years to convince Cadsoft. The sad thing is all the money that they have left on the table because large companies can't use a CAD sans hierarchy.

Now why on earth is Mentor IC Station Schematic unable to print out a complete hierarchy? That's what the guys at the IC house told me.

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No, I never said it'll be there before version 6. Many moons ago I was hoping version 5 would have it but one question to them dashed that hope. So I just sat out this release.

Nah, I wait for Eagle 6.0. If it introduces the hierarchy and they don't screw up the quality (as in no crashes) it'll be as close to perfect as CAD can get.

So would that make it a Castro-Chevy? :-)

The experience friends had with "socialist editions" of Western cars was rather checkered. In Europe this happened a lot. Polski-Fiat, Lada, and so on. Those cars rusted fast and broke down a lot. Ok, they were cheap.

Then how do you explain the PSpice COM wrapper error? LTSpice doesn't have those kinds of errors.

I don't think Crapture can print a hierarchical stack either. I know PSpice Schematics can't directly.

Though you've tweaked my imagination. PSpice Schematics are purely text format like those from LTspice. So it should be possible to write a script or a batch file (remember those ?:-) to print out the hierarchical stack. ...Jim Thompson