Author Topic: Pulsonix design software, whats the general opinion  (Read 11098 times)

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Offline Bassman59

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Re: Pulsonix design software, whats the general opinion
« Reply #25 on: April 14, 2021, 03:17:51 pm »
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And no, Altium isn't used by the big chip vendors for complex SoC designs. Take TI, NVidia, Microsemi and NXP for example; all their reference designs are made using Orcad.

You are not right. The manufacturers which I mentioned in my post are using Altium, ofcourse I'm not saying that they are using it exclusively, but on their webpage you can find reference designs done in Altium and it is not just a "few pieces". It is a very bold statement if you are saying that "all their reference designs are made in OrCAD" :).
Read more carefully: I wrote 'Complex SoC designs'. The less complex reference designs are often outsourced to contractors and it might be that the manufacturers require them to use Altium due to the presence of Altium in the mid-range market. All in all having reference designs present in Altium format doesn't really tell you that the big manufacturers are using Altium themselves.

Take this new SoC (which is in preview phase) from TI for example: https://www.ti.com/product/DRA821U. The reference design is made using Orcad / Allegro and it is only a couple of months old.

TI is a big company, with businesses across the entire globe.

It is likely that each business unit or group, which are all pretty much autonomous anyway, chooses the tools that best meet its needs, so one may choose OrCAD, another may choose higher-end Allegro, another may choose Altium, and it would not surprise me if some future designs were done in Kicad. Why is any of this controversial?

Another point: who cares what tool is used for a reference design? A customer who uses Altium isn't going to say, "Well, shit, TI used Allegro for this SoC design, I need to get Allegro too!"
 

Offline olkipukki

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Re: Pulsonix design software, whats the general opinion
« Reply #26 on: April 15, 2021, 12:12:51 pm »
And no, Altium isn't used by the big chip vendors for complex SoC designs. Take TI, NVidia, Microsemi and NXP for example; all their reference designs are made using Orcad.
..and by Orcad do you mean Allegro & Co that starts from n0000.00 (n>1) in any currency, no OrCAD standard for 500?  >:D
 

Offline harerod

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Re: Pulsonix design software, whats the general opinion
« Reply #27 on: April 15, 2021, 06:44:03 pm »
...

Another point: who cares what tool is used for a reference design? A customer who uses Altium isn't going to say, "Well, shit, TI used Allegro for this SoC design, I need to get Allegro too!"
The guy who pilfers the schematic for reuse in his own design?

{MAH2104161815: removed a misleading part from the quotation.}
« Last Edit: April 16, 2021, 04:18:34 pm by harerod »
 
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Offline nctnico

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Re: Pulsonix design software, whats the general opinion
« Reply #28 on: April 15, 2021, 10:03:47 pm »
And no, Altium isn't used by the big chip vendors for complex SoC designs. Take TI, NVidia, Microsemi and NXP for example; all their reference designs are made using Orcad.
..and by Orcad do you mean Allegro & Co that starts from n0000.00 (n>1) in any currency, no OrCAD standard for 500?  >:D
You've got a few zeroes too many. The Orcad PCB designer (=Allegro) professional edition is cheaper compared to Altium for similar functionality. And according to a few forum members Orcad seems to have regional offers which are sub 1000 euro for the bare-bones basic edition every now and then. The basic package is good enough for designs which don't use high speed memory and/or large numbers of high speed busses. But ofcourse you can extend Orcad / Allegro with a whole bunch of additional features.

Quote from: nctnico on 2021-04-13, 20:40:51...

Another point: who cares what tool is used for a reference design? A customer who uses Altium isn't going to say, "Well, shit, TI used Allegro for this SoC design, I need to get Allegro too!"
The guy who pilfers the schematic for reuse in his own design?
Indeed. When I had to change PCB packages (due to increasing complexity of the PCB layouts I'm working on) a couple of years ago, I have looked at Altium (even attended a demo). However, since I already used Orcad for the schematics and all of the reference designs that are interesting to me are made using Orcad Allegro, it was an easy choice to go for Orcad. It is so much easier and less risky to stick on some new parts on a working schematic compared to redrawing it from scratch. A typical SoC reference design starts from 15 pages, 10+ power nets and hundreds of components. Not to mention the footprints and being able to open the reference PCB design with the package it is made in and browse around, check trace widths, look at the copper pours, copy stuff like routing constraints, pin delays, etc.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2021, 10:23:42 pm by nctnico »
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