Altium Evaluation Guide for Eagle® Users

MOVINGALTIUM TO EVALUATION CIRCUITSTUDIO GUIDE® FROM FOREAGLE EAGLE®TM USERS

CIRCUITSTUDIO’S PLATFORM APPROACH

Many other PCB Design Tools treat board-level design, simulation (SPICE), generating Production data, Library Management and managing Design rules as independent processes or tool-chains. Moving into the future, this point tool approach will increasingly present a barrier to efficient electronic product development. An alternative approach is a unified design platform that allows you to combine all those tasks into a single executable. This next generation solution to electronic design has shown to significantly boost productivity when compared to the tool-chain approach.

The diagram to the right illustrates the architecture of the software platform. The foundation is a unified data model adjacent to a data management layer. This combination brings significant data management capabilities to the design process. A hierarchical project combines all disciplines of PCB Design into a single view. Another advantage of the platform architecture is the inclusion of IP which is fully integrated into the design process. The platform approach eliminates all the tool integration and data management headaches creating more time for product innovation.

This document guides you through the process of moving from Eagle to CircutiStudio.

THE CIRCUITSTUDIO ENVIRONMENT

Main article: Exploring CircuitStudio, Design Environment

The CircuitStudio environment offers a complete electronic product development environment for all areas of design - from schematic capture, simulation within that same schematic, to the generation of PCB and production Data. The environment has a ribbon based user interface, making it familiar and comfortable to any windows user. Consistent selection and editing paradigms across the different editors allow you to easily switch between various designs tasks all within the CircuitStudio environment.

CircuitStudio is based on a single executable allowing you to start one application and only change the active view to create and edit all design files, regardless of the type of file - schematics, PCB, library, text, and so on. No longer will you have to switch between different windows when you want to move from viewing the schematic to the PCB. All the files (also referred to as documents) open in the same executable, each appearing on a separate Document Tab within CircuitStudio. As you move from one type of document to another the menus and toolbars automatically switch, giving you the right editing environment for that document.

GETTING HELP

Main article: CircuitStudio Documentation

The best way to learn is through doing, CircuitStudio provides a number of ways to help you do that:

Clicking F1 over any object, editor, panel, menu entry or button to open a brief description in the online CircuitStudio documentation.

Clicking F1 while running a command for a list of shortcuts you can use in that command.

Share ideas and get help from other CircuitStudio users: CircuitStudio Forums

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CIRCUITSTUDIO.COM

The CircuitStudio website allows you to access the forums where you can share all your thoughts with your industry peers. It is the central place for users of CircuitStudio. This includes a complete Ecosystem to deliver content, knowledge and shared experiences with tool users like you. Also, it is a place where you can provide feedback on software bugs or feature requests.

Software: You can download CircuitStudio together with a 1 month trial version

Resources: Search the technical documentation or discuss your topics with Element14 staff and users on the forum.

Blogs: What’s new, technical and commercial topics around CircuitStudio.

Getting Started: a series of getting started videos and product FAQ

PROJECT-BASED DESIGN

Main article: Driving A PCB Design Through CircuitStudio

The starting point for every design created in CircuitStudio is a project file. There are two project types supported, each targeting a different final implementation, PCB project and Integrated Library project. The project file stores links to the actual design documents that are part of the project, as well as project-specific settings. This acts as a central storage place for your complete design.

PREFERENCES

Main article: CircuitStudio Preferences

Global Preferences are accessed by selecting File>>System Preferences from the menus. The preferences configured here are stored as part of your installation, they do not travel with the design files. File-specific settings, such as schematic document options and printed circuit board options are accessed via the Project>>Content>>Document Options menu or inside the design document - Right Click>>Options>>Document Options(Schematic) or Board Options(PCB) in each editor.

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PCB LAYOUT AND DESIGN

Successful board layouts rely on design systems that unify the design definition with the physical layout and routing. CircuitStudio offers such a PCB system which includes a number of familiar features to help you place and route your board. When the PCB Editor is active (i.e. a PCB document (*.CSPcbDoc) is open and active) the main application window will contain:

A main design window in which you can start designing, capable of display in both 2D and 3D (shortcut: 2, 3)

Menus and toolbars that are specific to the PCB Editor

Workspace panels that are either global or editor-specific

VIEW CONFIGURATION AND THE LAYER STACK MANAGER

View Configurations are settings that control many PCB workspace display options for both 2D and 3D environments, and apply to the PCB and PCB Library Editors. The view configuration last used when saving any PCB document is also saved with the file. Select View>>Switch to 3D>>View Configurations>>View Configuration from the main menu to open the View Configurations dialog.

To open the Layer Stack Manager select Home>>Board>>Layer Stack Manager from the menus. The Layer Stack Manager dialog shows the current layer stack up of the board (Shown in Figure 6). Signal and plane layers can be added, removed, or their order changed. Double-click on an electric or insulation layer to configure layer properties, such as: thickness, net association (plane layers), or the dielectric constant.

PCB BOARD OPTIONS - DOCUMENT SETTINGS

All options for the placement grid, measurement units, sheet position, and designator display mode are set in the Board Options dialog. With a PCB document active in the main design window (for this and all of the following context-sensitive dialogs), inside the design document - Right Click>>Options>>Board Options to open the Board Options dialog.

For multi-channel designs, you can select between logical and physical designator display on the PCB in the Board Options dialog.

INTERACTIVE ROUTING

Main article: Interactive Routing

CircuitStudio has different interactive routing modes for interactive routing for single tracks, differential pairs and busses. There are a number of different routing obstacle avoidance modes:

Ignore obstacles

Push obstacles

Stop at first obstacle

AutoRoute on current layer

Additionally routing also supports width driven impedance routing based on the width rule.

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DESIGN RULES

Main articles: PCB Design Rules Reference

CircuitStudio’s PCB Editor is a rules-driven design environment. You can also transfer your favorite design rules from another board. Design rules can be exported from, and imported to, the PCB Rules and Constraints Editor dialog.

SEE ALSO FOR PCB DESIGN

A great place to start learning about PCB Design is Tutorial - Driving a PCB Design Through CircuitStudio

PCB Inspector Panel which displays the common properties of different objects and lets you filter and edit them

PCB Filter Panel to learn more about filtering objects in the PCB Environment

Autorouting Tools covers the configuration and setup of autorouting features in CircuitStudio

MIXED-SIGNAL CIRCUIT SIMULATION

Mixed-signal circuit simulation is a unified part of the capture process, and is fully integrated with the schematic editing environment. Before you launch the Mixed-signal circuit simulation, make sure that any schematic sheet within the project is open. Simulation models need to be associated with every component in the schematic document before simulation can be launched from the command Design»Simulate»Mixed Sim. Simulation is done for the entire project.

You can use the same Schematic for both Simulation and PCB because of CircuitStudio’s unified data model. This integrated simulation environment is fully SPICE compatible and additionally supports some PSPICE models.

COMPILATION - A CORNERSTONE OF CIRCUITSTUDIO

Compilation is a cornerstone concept of the CircuitStudio environment. Compilation is a process that allows you to harness many powerful design features.

When you complete your Eagle schematic design, you are used to generating a netlist and importing this information into your PCB tool. With CircuitStudio you do a compilation instead. With that you transfer any available information into the unified database for your project. From here, it is available to any other domain available inside this powerful toolset. For the transfer of data from one domain to the other CircuitStudio will offer you an engineering change order process (ECO). With that ECO, you have full control over what can be transferred.

When you select Home>>Project>>Compile the compilation process works out the structural relationships between the source schematic documents in the project, then determines the net-level connectivity within each sheet, and finally the connectivity between the sheets. All this component and connective intelligence from your schematics design is written into CircuitStudio’s unified internal data structure that can then be used for many post-compilation activities, such as comparing and showing differences between schematics, cross probing back and forth between the schematics and PCB, and much more.

CONFIGURING DESIGN CONNECTIVITY

CircuitStudio supports different types of design connectivity, and this must be set to suit the structure of the design. The type of sheet-to-sheet connectivity is called the Net Identifier Scope. This is defined in the Options tab of the Options for Project dialog and saved with the project. From the Project menu go to the Content section and select the Project Options menu command, and go to the Options tab.

In the Net Identifier Scope dropdown you can select from the following connectivity options:

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Automatic (Based on project contents)

Flat (Only ports global)

Hierarchical (Sheet entry <-> port connections)

Global (Net labels and ports global)

You can import Eagle design content using the File>>Import menu. The Import process handles connectivity automatically through the translation process and will give you the Automatic (Based on project contents) configuration by default. Hierarchical blocks are mapped as sheet symbols, and they will translate to sheet symbols in CircuitStudio. In Automatic mode, the design compiler then looks at the sheet symbols on the top sheet. If there are sheet entries (hierarchical pins) in them, it will assume vertical connectivity, and internally use the Hierarchical option. If there are no sheet symbols on the top sheet, or if there are sheet symbols but they do not include any sheet entries, it will assume horizontal connectivity for which there are two ways that CircuitStudio supports this: Flat and Global. In order to determine which of these two options to use, the design compiler looks for ports or off-sheet connectors on the sub-sheets. If there are any it uses the Flat option, if there are no ports it uses the Global option.

You can easily go back and change the configuration after translation through the Project Options dialog from the Projects menu.

VERIFYING YOUR DESIGN - EXPANDED ERROR CHECKING

Main articles: Project Compiler Error Reference

Another benefit that results from compiling a project in CircuitStudio is built-in error reporting. This is completely configurable for your needs and can be done before your project is compiled. Right-click either on the project file and invoke the Project Options command, or also through the Project menu.

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DESIGN SYNCHRONIZATION

Main article: Engineering Change Order

Design synchronization is fully integrated in CircuitStudio without the need for passing a net list. Synchronization in CircuitStudio is also bi-directional, allowing you to make annotation changes and component property updates in both directions between your schematic and PCB, in a single operation.

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COMPONENTS AND LIBRARIES

Main article: Component Libraries

CircuitStudio supports working directly from the source symbol or model libraries, an ideal approach when the schematic and PCB are designed by separate organizations.

The logical symbol is assumed to be the essential starting point of a component. It can be initially defined, at a minimum, as a name in a schematic library to which pins and any graphical symbols or alternative display options needed for implementation may be added. This flexibility allows a component to be represented in different ways during the design and capture process. This may not only be as a logical symbol on the schematic, but also be a footprint on the PCB or even as a SPICE definition for simulation.

WHERE ARE MY LIBRARIES? SOME BASICS ON LIBRARY MANAGEMENT

You’ll be able to view your source schematic and PCB library files immediately after translation through the Projects panel. Your translated libraries are automatically grouped into one PCB project.

To make their components available in all open projects, Libraries are installed (added) to the CircuitStudio environment through the Libraries Panel.

Display the Libraries panel, from there you can install and remove libraries. Libraries can also be linked to any project, and you can also define project search paths, useful for referencing simulation models.

See Component Management in CircuitStudio for a further discussion on using Integrated Libraries.

PROJECT OUTPUTS

Generating documentation has always been an essential part of your work. Generating all of the necessary files with all of the necessary settings is just a few mouse-clicks away. The Output Generator allows you to select, configure, and generate all the required files to build your design. To access the Output Generator go to theProject>>Generate Outputs menu.

To learn about generating manufacturing output see Generate Output Files.

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STEP-BY-STEP IMPORT INSTRUCTIONS

With the change to the XML data Format in eagle, CircuitStudio provides a native Importer to support you in data migration.

Start the Import process with File»Import

Select Types of Files to import g EAGLE Files(*.SCH,*.BRD,*.LBR)

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Ctrl select or group select (with the mouse) the EAGLE Design and library files you would like to import.

Now you’ve finished and can work with your imported files.