Quantum CAD - Electronic and PCB Design Blog

Tackle Time to Market challenge head on - With CADSTAR Schematic Free Download

Zuken recognizes that time to market is a critical factor in the day to day work of design teams within the product development process.  To support this the development team for CADSTAR, Zuken’s powerful PCB design solution, is inviting design engineers to experience the latest CADSTAR Schematic Design Tool and Library Editor as a free download for a limited period of time, commencing January 5, 2009 until 31 March 2009.  This unlimited and non expiring copy of CADSTAR 11 Schematic Design Tool will allow the whole design team to explore the benefits of CADSTAR’s integrated design flow opportunities.

Customers advise the designs themselves are becoming more and more complex, to the extent that passing on critical design information between the members of the design team, each often using individual design tools, can be time consuming and allows design errors.

What's New in CADSTAR 11

CADSTAR 11, New Enhancements

Introducing CADSTAR 11, Zuken’s PCB design revolution

Interested in reducing routing time by 30-40%

 

Quantum EDS is excited to introduce the new Dragon Routing Platform.

Dragon Reduces Design Cycle Time and is full of benefits includin g: 

• Routing is easy to set up
  • No specific knowledge required
• Auto-interactive tools work seamlessly with automatic tools
• Analysis tools allow quick evaluation of routing feasibility and set up of routing parameters
  • Auto-router should learn from user interactions and previous auto-routing tasks
  • Adaptive parameter tuning
• Routing patterns become like the user wants

CADSTAR FPGA / ALDEC Active HDL Webinar

Aldec and Zuken developed a smooth synchronization between Aldec Active-HDL/CADSTAR FPGA and Zuken CADSTAR SCM/PCB offering complete support for all FPGA vendors from design creation to mixed VHDL and Verilog simulation, project management, schematic and PCB layout. This seminar includes a design demonstration and presentation on how to use Aldec Active HDL /CADSTAR FPGA and Zuken CADSTAR SCM/PCB in a unified environment.

Read More about this event by clicking here

Latest Free Version of CADSTAR Express

Zuken has released the latest revision of the free sample download of CADSTAR 10.0--CADSTAR Express. This fully operational version of Zuken’s easy to use and ready to use powerful desktop PCB design solution includes all the latest features of CADSTAR 10.0, with a limit of 300 pins and 50 components.

Users downloading this tool from Quantum EDS website can quickly get a feel for the major advancements in ease of use and reverse engineering featured in version 10.0. The back annotation function for example, now makes file transfer from PCB into schematic a much smoother process, assisting in the efficient management of engineering change orders that are particularly associated with high-speed designs.

Earlier this year CADSTAR Express took second place in E&E’s (Elektronik & Entwicklung) awards under the Design Tools and Software category; based on the solution’s ease of use and compatibility with other design/manufacturing software systems.

To get the most out of CADSTAR Express, Zuken has compiled a Do-It-Yourself Booklet, created to guide the user step-by-step through the solution using design examples.

If you are interested in learning more, please contact your local Quantum EDS to find out more about the unlimited versions of CADSTAR solutions.

CADSTAR MIGRATION TO CADENCE ALLEGRO

I had this exact problem, the other day, to migrate a Cadstar design into Cadence Allegro, we thought a possible migration route might be through OrCAD Layout, but the problem is once you have a cadstar.pcb file you cannot back migrate this cadstar file to an older version i.e. (DOS .cdi) We spoke to Zuken about this and this was pretty much their answer, so looks like we cannot use OrCAD Layout as a migration route for modern cadstar files. The migration route we are considering is to reverse engineer the cadstar file into Allegro. We also spoke to Cadence about this, they have internal translators which take cadstar.pcb files to Allegro, but this would be done under their serives division and might be costly. So you pay your money and take your choice whether to pay Cadence or reverse engineer the PCB.