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OT: EDA tools

We've been using Altium's P-CAD for a few years (started as TangoEDA). Currently running 2002 and very unlikely to upgrade as, in my opinion, it is not a very good product and the company just loves to collect their $1,500 a year by releasing bogus "service packs". Still lots of very fundamental issues that remain without attention.

Anyhow, the question is, what do we move up to? Not looking for the $100K+ packages. What are people using that performs well for designing (schematic) and laying out high-speed, high-complexity PCB's? I've heard that PADS may have the largest installed base out there. I remember getting a demo of Mentor's Expedition at a tradeshow. It seemed like a pretty serious tool, although I'd suspect it comes at a hefty price.

Any recommendations? The need will be here in another six months or so. I want to do my research well ahead of that.

Thanks,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Martin Euredjian

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Reply to
Martin
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Download the new PADS 2005 demo, from the Mentor website. This is fully functional, but has a low ceiling (rather than time-bombed), so you can try all features on simple designs, and take as long as you want to evaluate. If you load in a large design, all saves are disabled.

You may also be able to get an early copy of the PCAD-PADS translator, and trial migrating your databases....

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

I'll take a look at it.

Any idea of what market penetration PADS has w/respect to others? How strong is their user base?

-Martin

Reply to
Martin

I should clarify that the reason for being concerned about this has to do with being able to move projects back and forth with vendors, collaborate and even farm out some of the work. With so many file formats out there, it'd be simpler to purchase the EDA system that has the most seats.

-Martin

Reply to
Martin

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