[sdiy] What's your fav PCB package?

[Robin Whittle]

There's a discussion forum on PCB design at:

  http://www.edaboard.com/forum6.html

with a warning:

   Stop the is xxx software is better than xxx software topicz

Searching:

  Eagle    93
  Protel  274
  Orcad   322
  Pcad    100

An article about PADS2004:

  http://www.embedded.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=20900090

    Power users are sitting on the top of the cost/complexity pile
    with around 10% of seats, mainstream users hang around trying
    to look like "Joe Cool" in the center with approximately 15% of
    seats, and "Ready to Use" users make up the bulk of the party
    with the remaining 75% of seats. (Apparently, extensive market
    analysis has revealed that folks no longer like to be classed as
    "Late Adopters," but everyone seems happy with the "Ready to Use"
    appellation.)

    With regards to EDA tools for PCBs in the Ready to Use arena,
    there is a superfluity of products, with the primary contenders
    being names from the past that resonate with my consciousness: OrCAD
    (now owned by Cadence, but managed/sold by EMA), Protel (created by
    the folks at Protel who now call themselves Altium), P-CAD (was
    owned by ACCEL, now part of Altium), CADSTAR (was Racal-Redac, then
    Zuken-Redac, now just Zuken), Allegro Studio (was Valid, then
    Cadence, now managed/sold by EMA), and of course PADS (originally
    owned by PADS Software, then Innoveda, and then Mentor Graphics who
    gobbled Innoveda up not-so-long ago).

This translates into:

   Altium =      Protel, P-CAD
   EMA/Cadence = OrCad, Allegro
   Mentor =      PADS
   Zuken =       CADSTAR


PADS is at: http://www.mentor.com/products/pcb/pads/

but I figure if I can't find the price of the thing within 3 minutes it
is probably too expensive.  There is a demo version, and the
registration page helpfully lists some competing products:

  http://www.mentor.com/products/pcb/pads/pads2004_eval.cfm

   Board Station  Board Station RE
   Expedition
   PADS PowerPCB
   Orcad Layout
   Protel
   Allegro
   CADSTAR
   Eagle
   Electronic Workbench
   Intercept Pantheon
   P-CAD
   Zuken CR3000, CR5000, Visula

I am still thinking Eagle Professional schematic and PCB for price and
for not trying to go to far into endless integration with simulation
tools, FPGA design etc.  I also feel better about a company which
releases a useful limited version, has lots of customers and doesn't
have such glossy-looking brochures.  Eagle doesn't seem to have even a
.PDF of a brochure.  There's something unsettling to me about a company
with glossy marketing-type people hovering around, and deriving their
vast incomes from, something which needs to be really gutsy, physical,
rigid and reliable with schematics, components, traces and holes in a PCB.

I see Eagle has a history going back to 1988:

  http://www.cadsoft.de/legal.htm


  - Robin