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 | |  | | | | | Cadence Architects Rethink PCB Routing to Develop a Next-generation Solution
Paul Musto and Team
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. | |
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Cadence announced on March 26, a breakthrough technology called Global Route Environment for Allegro PCB design. It's a technology that has been six years in the making. Cdnusers interviewed Paul Musto and his team to find out more about how this technology came about.
Paul Musto, Engineering Group Director, Allegro PCB Applications Development, said a group formed in 2001 to fundamentally change the way PCB routing is done today. "We didn't rush this. We wanted to be sure we got it right and wanted to ensure that we would provide a significant leap in productivity to our customers. After analyzing current technology, we determined that it did not provide the best foundation for moving forward and that we needed a next-generation solution—based upon a new underlying router engine coupled with a new use model paradigm."
Cadence architects set out to completely rethink routing technology, which resulted in a long road to completion. And that's what makes this product development unique, Musto enthused. "We have heard our critics say that Cadence doesn't have the patience or the conviction to see internal innovation come to fruition. But from the ground up Global Route Environment technology was conceptualized, built, and will be delivered e xclusively using Cadence resources."
Architects live apart, but think as one
Principal architects Woody Woodward, Ken Wadland, Randy Lawson, and product engineer Greg Horlick, have worked together from the project's beginning. They're scattered from San Diego, California to Huntsville, Alabama to Boulder, Colorado to Chelmsford, Massachusetts but geographical remoteness hasn't affected their work.
"Cadence has done well with supporting the multi-site environment," said Woodward, Allegro R&D and Project Lead. "We do a lot of Web collaboration and have regular architectural reviews along the way. We've all been doing this for so long it has become second nature."
While living in different parts of the U.S., the entire team of 15 R&D engineers shares a unique blend of engineering talent. "Some of us have been in the routing software business since 1985," Woodward noted. "We have been exposed to a lot of different ways of doing things. Some of us have designed boards, so when you combine that with our knowledge of routing software technology, you come up with a good mix for being successful."
They know the pains of board layout
Knowing the PCB designer's pain points helped the team focus on the right solution. "Design has a lot of starts and stops," Woodward explained. "Board designers come up against last-minute design changes all the time."
Now when starting a design, the board designer goes through a "design intent" exercise that captures and retains in the Allegro database the overall design plan in a graphical representation.
Users graphically define how they want certain route patterns for bundles and flows to take place in the design, explained Woodward. "Over the years engineers have drawn these patterns on napkins, in drawing applications, Microsoft Word documents, or any other means possible. The problem is that this information had no intelligence and would be lost over time."
With a design intent in place, the automated router process will drive the connections in a particular desired fashion. "If you just let the router do what it would normally do, it might come across a particular area of the design and get it wrong," Woodward said.
"Design intent rules handle those areas where difficulties would likely arise."
Customers will enjoy a two-pronged benefit from the new routing technology, with vastly improved underlying smart algorithms and a visual graphic interface that interprets design, quickly allowing the user to determine if the routing solution is viable, and storing it in the Allegro database.
Sticking to a timetable
With a project of this magnitude, regular milestones became a way of moving the project forward. At each step of the way the team conferred with management and customers to be sure the project was going to deliver as promised.
Musto said that in 2003 they picked a set of customers "that we thought represented the technology leadership—Cisco, Intel, Sun Microsystems, Motorola, NVIDIA." They worked closely with them to get their ideas and concepts. The team also hired outside consultants, who validated what they were doing, and consulted with Cadence Fellows to reality-check their work.
Woodward acknowledged, "The technology was a challenge, but we have great people with tremendous experience. The hardest part was following a process and methodology while facing the continual, mounting pressure for delivering new technology."
Demo in Chelmsford wins the day
The biggest milestone came a year ago last August. "We took one design from each of our customers and demonstrated on a real design what our new technology could do and how we would go through the design flow," recalled Woodward. "The prototype code was functional enough that we could show how it worked. The meeting took place in Chelmsford, where customers came to watch a day-long demo. One customer, so excited by the results, began asking when it would be ready. "They wanted it right away," said Musto. "It was a huge success."
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About the author
Dr. Ken Wadland is a Senior Architect in SPB with over 25 years experience in EDA software development. He has designed the architecture and core autorouting algorithms for nearly a dozen PCB autorouters. Prior to coming to Cadence, Ken served as Chief Technical Officer (CTO) for 2 successful startups that later became multimillion-dollar companies and was the chairman of the Computer Science Department at Fitchburg State College. In addition, he has led advanced software training and created development standards for several Fortune 500 companies.
Paul Musto is currently Engineering Group Director for the PCB Implementation and High Speed Analysis groups for the Allegro Platform at Cadence Design Systems. He leads an R&D team responsible for the development of PCB design, routing, and signal integrity products. Paul has been with Cadence for 16 years and has over 19 years of experience marketing, developing, and using EDA tools for PCB and IC package design. Prior to Engineering Group Director, Paul was responsible for product marketing and business development of Cadence's IC packaging and PCB solutions. During that time, he launched new products to market that are now core technologies and market leaders in the industry. Paul holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Woody Woodward is architect for the routing team at Cadence and is located in San Diego, California. Woody has been with Cadence since July, 1985. He received his BS in Computer Science from Penn State University.
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