Electronics > PCB/EDA/CAD

EDA for simulation/design up to GHz?

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sdim:
Hi.

I am learning high speed digital system design and I want to design some boards.

Do you think that the commercial applications worth the extra money or I should prefer free software?

Can you recommend me an EDA that have high speed simulation capabilities? I'm overwhelmed by the many available choices.

What software do the large electronic manufacturers that design mobile phones , PC mainboards and peripherals, tablets, etc. use?

marshallh:
Pros use Orcad/Allegro(layout), Mentor pads/expedition, Altium
Typical SI packages might be Agilent ADS, Hyperlynx.

Prepare to spend tens of thousands and much more

lgbeno:


--- Quote from: marshallh on September 09, 2013, 07:40:19 am ---Pros use Orcad/Allegro(layout), Mentor pads/expedition, Altium
Typical SI packages might be Agilent ADS, Hyperlynx.

Prepare to spend tens of thousands and much more

--- End quote ---

A few extra SI packages are Cadence SigExplorer, SI Soft and Ansys HSPICE.  All are very $$.

I would say that there are many schools of thought on what exactly is "required".  If you don't have the money to spend, then IMO you could drudge through with a free tool and judiciously follow routing guidelines and manually triple check your layouts.  If you start pushing the limits to where this gets out of hand, a more sophisticated tool becomes needed.

If this is for your job, definitely make sure that your management knows that it would be better to invest in a tool since the stakes are too high.  For a self funded hobby, completely different situation...

sdim:
I'm self employed. There is no management.

I was a hobbyist but I'm trying to do electronics engineering and programming my primary job. I love programming, I started learning programming for hobby 20 years ago (Turbo Pascal Qbasic, VB, C) but I want to do it my primary job.
I have studied mechanical & aeronautical engineering and I'm PhD candidate on information systems department (i use VB.NET, ASP.NET, MS SQL).
I also work as a mechanical engineer for living and I'm co-owner of a construction company (with a few partners).
However, due to the economic crisis here (I live in Greece) the construction sector is shrinked by 90% the last few years so I have to extend my field of work.
Since I always loved programming (I'm also VAT registered programmer/developer, I've done some programming business)  I decided to develop an UAV.  I use the knowledge from my studies and my programming skills. I cannot afford to hire some engineers so I have to do everything by myself (I wish I had another option).

I have created a prototype and almost everything is ready. The chasis, the engines, the flight controller are ready.

I implemented the flight controller on a custom made protoboard with many tiny cables all over and an ARM core MCU (it took me 4 months to learn the ARM architecture and make the firmware). It works with a few I2C errors from time to time. I think I'm very lucky that it works if you consider the I2C clock performance (1div = 1V, not 100mV as displayed on the oscilloscope. I forgot to change the oscilloscope setting from x1. It should top at 3.3V but it does not due to high resistance or capacitance).

I need a simulation software so I can design a PCB of reasonable quality for the flight controller. I will use it later for many other projects I have in mind.

I can pay a few $$$ for good software. As a self employed engineer I have to pay more than $7000 every year for insurance (minimum allowed by the law for engineers with 5+ years of experience, it includes health care, pension, etc) and more than $1000 to the government just because I'm self employed (plus 23% VAT + 1~4% tax on sale price, plus 26%~40% on net profit). I pay so many taxes ( you will never believe how many taxes I have to pay here in Greece. If you take into account that a worker salary starts from less than $800/month, the taxes are extraordinary ) that the cost of the software is just a small factor of my expenses.

Since I will invest plenty of my personal time to learn the simulation software, I need to choose some "future proof" solution that I could use to simulate crosstalk, termination, transmission lines, busses, etc.

free_electron:
CST studio , Hyperlinx, Aplac , Agilent ADS.

but. i'd start getting a good design tool : Altium.

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