Design News

BANGALORE, INDIA - Ruwel GmbH of Geldern, Germany has announced that it has purchased an over 80% share in Naavinya CAD Soft Ltd. (NCS) located in Bangalore, India. The companies have also agreed on a buyer's option on the remaining 20%.

The company has stated that qualified engineers are currently in short supply in the rural areas of Germany, and the company decided to outsource additional need for job scheduling through a partnership in India. The company reports that the Indian engineers have more than two years experience in circuit board layout and design, and that the engineers will receive an additional three months training at Ruwel GmbH.

The company also reports plans to further expand its activities in Bangalore.
MUNICH, GERMANY AND WESTFORD, MA - Zuken has partnered with Dassault Systèmes to launch Board Interchanger used for concurrent mechanical and PCB design. The software allows MCAD engineers access to Zuken's CR-5000 Board Designer within Dassault Systèmes' CATIA V5 software.

The company claims that the integration allows the MCAD engineer to set mechanical space requirements before the layout, helping to resolve 3D design issues earlier in the design process.

The company states that Board Interchanger uses the geometric data from CR-5000 Board Designer within CATIA V5 to allow 3D PCB models to be created. These models can then be used for mechanical design reviews of a completed electronic product. Board Interchanger also allows 3D collision checking between housing, components and other PCBs. There is also potential for reduction in board size through the product's concurrent mechanical and electronic design capabilities.
SAN JOSE, CA -- Cadence Design has submitted an offer to buy out Mentor Graphics, valuing its rival at $1.45 billion.

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WILSONVILLE, OR -- Mentor Graphics confirmed that it previously rejected the unsolicited proposal by Cadence Design to acquire Mentor at a price of $16.00 per share.

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DES PLAINES, IL - PCB Matrix Corp. has released the PADS Layout Constraint Rules Editor. The software is used with PADS V5, V2004, V2005 and V2007, and optimizes the use of constraint set-up and rules within PADS Layout.

The company states that the constraint rules editor interface allows users to view, change and update rules, with easy transfer of updates between the PADS Layout tool and constraint rules editor.

The company reports that using PADS software, you can specify separate rules for clearance and trace width for individual pin pairs, nets, groups of nets, classes, components and even the entire design, with the flexibility to control the length of critical nets or specify matched lengths for groups of nets. 

Evaluation copies can be obtained by registering at pcblibraries.com/register.
STOKE ON TRENT, UK - PCB design bureau Black Stick Ltd. has a free software tool called the C4Calculator. The tool calculates current capacity for a given PCB track width and thickness. Black Stick’s C4Calculator (Current Carrying Capacity Calculator) utility determines the optimum current based on a given interconnect width and thickness. In addition, C4Calculator will also calculate the gap needed between conductors for a given voltage peak. All the calculations within the tool are taken from formulae or tables specified in the IPC-2222A standard. C4Calculator also allows users to perform calculations beyond the scope of the IPC standard.

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