CADSTAR for electronic design engineers

Innovation

Your PCB design challenges require innovative solutions, so being able to capture your ideas in a fast, effective, error-free manner is critical. CADSTAR Schematic Capture provides you with a flexible, yet powerful, design platform that includes:

A choice of design methodology that lets you design at the symbol, part, block or sheet level with a multi-layer hierarchical or multi-sheet design environment.
An intelligent, connective database that accurately captures design intent and maintains design integrity throughout the CADSTAR flow.
A fully customizable design environment with the same GUI in Schematic, PCB Layout, Library Editor and Routing environments.
A range of supporting tools to help you define, simulate and manage your design data

Library management

Libraries are key to the design process, so Zuken gets you ahead of the game with an on-line library of more than 250,000 parts from leading vendors such as Actel, Analog Devices, Intel, Texas and Zetex. Dynamic links can be added to a supplier’s datasheet or website so engineers have the latest information at their fingertips.

If you need to integrate CAD data with your engineering database, CADSTAR supports access to any ODBC-compliant data source, enabling links to the latest corporate information as well as the ability to run parametric searches to locate the correct part using a range of attributes.

Repeatability

Need to include repeated or pre-defined ‘golden circuit’ design blocks? Create them as reuse blocks and build your own library toshare with colleagues. Reuse blocks in schematics can automatically link to prerouted blocks in PCB layout, including placement, routing, copper and text to help you save time and enhance quality during layout and test.

FPGA integration

A growing number of designs include programmable devices that let you extend and customize the functionality of your products. Today’s high capacity devices have high pin counts that make symbol definition and management of pin connectivity increasingly complex; not just in the Schematic but throughout the design process.

CADSTAR FPGA, founded on industry-leading technology from Aldec Inc, enables FPGA development, synthesis and verification using a vendor-independent, intuitive design methodology. Single-click transfer of pin information to and from CADSTAR allows fast, efficient creation of functional block symbols and synchronization of pin changes to optimize the routability and performance of the design.

Simulation

CADSTAR supports tools for analog, digital and mixed mode simulation. You can export a Spice netlist for simulation.

Variant management

Variant Manager allows you to define market-specific products that broaden the scope and appeal of your range, improve cost control and enhance product differentiation. CADSTAR allows you to create, view and list multiple design variants by excluding selected items or specifying alternate parts.

Constraint-driven design

Even the most straightforward modern processor and memory combinations uses a DDR interface, so it makes sense to add the critical pin, net and timing constraints directly into the logical circuit design. The CADSTAR Constraint Browser is the ideal environment for entering and managing even the most complex rules, using a familiar spreadsheet style interface that helps capture and document design intent.

Placement planner

Correct placement of design blocks, or even individual components, is increasingly important as noise margins are reduced and switching speeds increase. CADSTAR Placement Planner offers a full suite of placement and board setup utilities (e.g. layer stackup, design rules, etc.) to provide the design engineers with the tools to define critical placement.