Re: [PROTEL EDA USERS]: Little history with an intelligent Autorouter.

[Brian Guralnick <brian@innerdimension.com>]

"Heiko Vachek" wrote > 2. Have you ever seen such an intelligent Autorouter?

Yes, unfortunately I have.  Don't bother reading the rest of this if you are
not interested...

Here is a screen grab from a cad called Pro-board3, about 70Kb each.

ftp://ftp.point-lab.com/quartus/Public/ProtelUsers/pbl2.png  Top & bottom
layer.
ftp://ftp.point-lab.com/quartus/Public/ProtelUsers/pbl3.png  middle layers 2
& 3
ftp://ftp.point-lab.com/quartus/Public/ProtelUsers/pbl4.png middle layers 4
& 5.

I autorouted this in 93.  The Pro-Board3 was made by Prolific Inc.  Though
it's display engine & features are primitive by today's standards, and this
board is pretty simple, take a careful look at what the autorouter did.
Traces were bundled automatically together.  There are a fraction of the
expected number of vias involved with an autorouter.

This cad also automatically renamed trace nets started anywhere and routed
to a specific point.  (See my letter No Net assignments on tracks & vias...)
It automatically found routes while manually routing just by clicking a new
destination and the trace would atomically work it's way around obstacles
between the last clicked target and the new one.  You didn't have to work
your way around the obstacles manually like in Protel.
At any time it could be told to automatically tension, (both manually &
automatically routed track), any number routed net, or even the complete
board, & it automatically got rid of un-necessary vias during this pass.

Software, Autorouter & System specs...

It took 25 minutes to route this board on a 25 Mhz Motorola 68040 system
with 8Mb.  If the program was compiled for today's x86 Pentium III, the
board would probably route in 1 minute.

The autorouter was an adaptive maze algorithm with a optional interactive
training.  (Great for making the router stack & place buss bundles just by
manually routing 1 buss signal, and the router would route the rest around
it automatically, see screen shots...)

Price:  Pro-Board3 & it's schematic capture software bundle was around
600$us back in 1993...
I used the product between 1991 (earlier versions) & 1996.  It's well though
out interactive routing & speed at the time left me with a lot of hours of
frustration with Protel when I had to upgrade over in 96 with a 166Mhz
Pentium.  The 3 year old cad just didn't cope with the new smaller and
smaller smd packages.

I think if Protel would take a look at this old product and copy the way it
intuitively interfaced with the user during board routing, Protel could
enhance their user's experience & productivity when working with their PCB
software within Protel99SE.

With best regards,
        Brian Guralnick.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Heiko Vachek" <Vachek@elektronik21.de>
To: "Multiple recipients of list proteledausers"
<proteledausers@techservinc.com>
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 7:15 AM
Subject: RE: [PROTEL EDA USERS]: Copy & paste within PCB P99SE with NETS
please.


> 1. Try "Edit|Paste special" with "Keep net names" checked instead of
> Ctrl-ins when pasting your selection.
> 2. Have you ever seen such an intelligent Autorouter?
> BTW: if you want planes on other layers not to be cut by this zig-zag row
of
> vias, just separate the two virtual lines where the vias are put on by
> another 20 mil. So a plane will flow around and between the vias.
>
> greetings,
> Heiko
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Brian Guralnick [mailto:brian@innerdimension.com]
> > Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 11:34 AM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list proteledausers
> > Subject: Re: [PROTEL EDA USERS]: Copy & paste within PCB
> > P99SE with NETS
> > please.
> >
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> >     I created sorta a 'via funnell' to pass a buss over a
> > group of SGRAM
> > chips.  Annoyingly, my pasted copy was missing the net names.
> >  Is there a
> > simple way to transfer the nets so that my 2 via funnells may
> > be joined
> > without all the ERC?
> >
> > Illustration, 80Kb desktop screenshot:
> > ftp://ftp.point-lab.com/quartus/Public/ProtelUsers/ptelcopy.png
> >
> >
> >     One other thing, is there an automated way to build such
> > a funnel to try
> > to keep a bundled set of signals as tight as possible?  I
> > know it woul be
> > easy to just make straight lines for the bundle, but I like
> > to keep open
> > room to place power plane vias for the adjacent ICs...
> >
> > Happy CADing,,,
> >     Brian.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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