Upgraded PC Board Software Ships In Free Sample Version

A number of enhancements in ease-of-use and reverse engineering have been incorporated into the latest edition of the CADSTAR desktop pc board design solution, CADSTAR 9.0, as well as the free sample version, CADSTAR Express. Downloadable from the Zuken website, CADSTAR Express is a fully operational version with all the latest features of CADSTAR 9.0, with a limit of 300 pins and 50 components.

One improvement lies in the back annotation function. Users can now back annotate from pc board design into schematics. Previously, if modifications were required — such as changing a resistor — users had to go back to the schematic and make the change there. Now the alteration can be made in either environment. This feature is especially helpful in high-speed designs. Ease-of-use enhancements include a more flexible report generator, which allows more attribute fields such as part number, price, supplier, and more. It also has a count function for tallying total quantities of parts used in the design, which eliminates the need to export OLE data into Excel. Additionally, to improve simulation accuracy, solder resist layers can be defined in a new MLR file. The field solver can read this file and consider the solder resist layers when calculating impedance and velocity.