CADSTAR Radial Design cuts radial board design time by two-thirds

December 4, 2001. CADSTAR Radial Design, a single-environment solution for the design of radial printed circuit boards, is based on Zuken's CADSTAR suite of PCB design tools integrated with the company's high speed Route Editor. It enables the design of radial boards, those with identical blocks of design centred around a single device or area, to be carried out accurately and rapidly with a high degree of automation and with guaranteed conformance to pre-defined manufacturing rules. Typically, the time to design such boards is cut by two-thirds.

For example, when producing an IC test board, a single test block is designed, placed and routed within the one design environment, and all of the design data can then be cut and pasted in a radial pattern around the test socket using a 'step and repeat' function. An unlimited number of blocks can be added to the design, physical size being the only limitation. CADSTAR Radial Design can be used to accurately match circuit lengths within each block and from block-to-block, minimising timing errors. It is then used to rapidly route PCB tracks back to the test board connectorwithin design rules set for track lengths and delays, with automatic compensation for timing differences.

Using CADSTAR Radial Design saves time and cost because the normal way to produce radial boards is for placement information to be exported, typically in DXF format, to a mechanical design tool to ensure accurate angular component placement. The data is then brought back into a PCB design tool and the board is manually routed.

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For further information and reader enquiries:

Ev Milker, Zuken Ltd.,
1500 Aztec West, Almondsbury, Bristol, BS32 4RF, UK

Tel: +44 1454 207800
Fax: +44 1454 207803
E-mail: Ev.milker@zuken.co.uk
Web: www.zuken.com

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Fax: +44 (0)1225 470 047
E-mail: bob@publitek.com
Web: www.publitek.com

Note to editors:

Zuken is one of the world's leading providers of professional software solutions for the design of PCB/MCM/IC packages and systems. These advanced tool sets facilitate schematic capture, placement, routing and analysis, and manufacture and test. Used by the world's top 30 electronic product manufacturers, the solutions operate under both UNIX and Microsoft Windows. Zuken is the market sector leader in Japan and has offices throughout Europe and the USA. It is a global organisation employing over 1000 people and the company is listed on Level 1 of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
For more information, visit http://www.zuken.com.