New Products

Multisim 14 SPICE simulation environment features an enhanced user experience, quicker access to simulation results, and improved interactive simulation. Includes active analysis functionality and graphing and post-processing results. Seamlessly integrates with LabVIEW software. Faster simulation and results with new probes and active analysis. New components for power electronics teaching and design. Conducts digital electronics teaching with Digilent FPGA boards. Features MPLAB co-simulation with 4,000 microcontrollers from Microchip (beta). High-level design accuracy with over 36,000 components from leading suppliers. Education Edition acts as circuit teaching tool for analog, digital and power circuits.

National Instruments, ni.com/multisim/

OrCAD PCB CAD software now includes five new products and three key features aimed at increasing productivity by reducing design cycle time and facilitating more advance designs via additional high-speed capabilities.

OrCAD Component Information Portal provides users with CIS database management capabilities and integrated access to parametric component data through an interactive, web interface directly within the OrCAD Capture CIS product.

OrCAD DFM Checker provides a comprehensive set of manufacturing/fabrication-centric checks for OrCAD PCB Editor. DfM fabrication checks can be run at any time during PCB place and route to help ensure that no fabrication-related issues are present, helping avoid fabrication-related delays, additional costs and re-work.

OrCAD Panel Editor provides an intelligent panel documentation environment for OrCAD PCB Editor that significantly simplifies panel creation and documentation.

OrCAD Sigrity ERC (Electrical Rules Check) provides a comprehensive set of electrical signal quality checks for OrCAD PCB Editor. ERCs are designed to be run by the PCB designer as a first-order electrical validation. This capability enables changes to be made within the design before more extensive and exhaustive analysis is performed.

OrCAD Capture Constraint System enables a constraint-driven PCB design flow for OrCAD Capture and OrCAD PCB Editor. Compared to the existing methodology, the OrCAD Capture Constraint System substantially expands the constraint definition and management methodology in OrCAD Capture.

New technologies include:

OrCAD PCB Editor productivity improvements include Scribble Route, an auto/interactive routing feature, which allows the user to loosely sketch a path for a route as the system figures how to detail-route it, as well as group and contour routing updates and via arrays.

OrCAD PCB Professional high-speed design features now offer enhanced differential pair constraints, propagation constraint support, delay tuning with heads-up display support, net scheduling and impedance constraint support.

OrCAD Signal Explorer is being added to OrCAD Capture technology-based products, enabling front-end signal integrity/signal quality simulation as well as topology exploration and constraint definition. It can also be scaled for additional signal exploration and signal integrity capabilities through OrCAD PCB SI.

Cadence Design Systems, www.cadence.com 

Pads suite comes in three configurations with features ranging from schematic capture to advanced hierarchical placement planning and analysis. 

Pads Standard performs schematic capture and PCB layout. Comes with starter parts library, parts creation wizard, and archive management.

Pads Standard Plus adds advanced constraint management, high-speed net constraints and routing, central library creation and management, HyperLynx-powered signal/thermal/analog simulation, and variants design. 

Pads Professional adds Xpedition-based sketch routing, simultaneous 2D/3D layout, hierarchical placement planning, component and net explorers, and other Valor-based manufacturing and design check tools. Scales to Xpedition Enterprise platform.

Mentor Graphics, www.mentor.com/pads

For a video preview, click here

Read Mike Buetow's commentary on the CAD software pricing wars here.

Dragonfly 2020 3D inkjet deposition printer is for printed circuit boards. Is said to print multilayer circuits with 10 or more layers in a few hours. Prints blind and buried vias without requiring drilling. For rapid prototyping of PCBs and small batch production.

Nano Dragonfly2020

Nan-o Dimension, http://www.nano-di.com

TDR – VNA probe assemblies through 44GHz are in two configurations. Testing for small discontinuities on non-planar printed circuit boards is possible on a 40GHz VNA or fast TDR. Probes reportedly deliver excellent return loss and low insertion loss. OmniJet probe 40GHz insertion loss is reportedly better than -1.5dB, and return loss is better than -10.0dB at 40GHz.

D-Coax, www.D-COAX.com

Updated XJTAG software reportedly increases flexibility for easier access to JTAG capabilities of boards and maximum test coverage. Dynamic chain profiling helps initialize boards with multiple JTAG chains, in which a device in one JTAG chain controls power supplies or reset lines for JTAG devices in other chains. During flash programming, can be set up to clock only JTAG data through the chain needed for programming operation. Can remove need to clock hundreds of bits of data per scan; speeds testing/programming. Increases capabilities of XJLink2 JTAG controller.

XJTAG, www.xjtag.com

 

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