Cadence Expands OrCAD Solution to Address Flex and Rigid-Flex Design Challenges for IoT, Wearables and Mobile Devices

Today at CDNLive EMEA, Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS) announced the OrCAD 17.2-2016 release with new capabilities for OrCAD® Capture, PSpice® Designer and PCB Designer that address challenges with flex and rigid-flex design as well as mixed-signal simulation complexities in IoT, wearables and wireless mobile devices.This latest release reduces PCB development time by addressing the need to design reliable circuits for smaller, more compact devices.

This OrCAD portfolio includes technology enabled for integrated rigid-flex planning, design and real-time visualization, as well as built-in translators that enable direct design imports from select EDA vendors. PSpice Designer now supports system-level simulation using C/C++/SystemC and VerilogA, via the new PSpice compact model interface. This enables hardware/software virtual prototyping so that electrical engineers can design and simulate intelligent IoT devices. OrCAD is the only fully scalable PCB design solution available in the market that seamlessly transitions from mainstream to enterprise PCB solution with the Allegro® environment. For more information on the latest OrCAD solution, visit: www.orcad.com/orcad-172-2016-release.

To enable a faster and more efficient flex and rigid-flex design creation critical to IoT, wearables and wireless devices, the OrCAD portfolio uses a new multi-stack-up database capability and extensive in-design inter-layer checks, which helps users avoid errors introduced through manual checking. The OrCAD portfolio also features enhancements targeted towards improving PCB editors’ productivity and ease-of-use in padstack editing, constraint management, shape editing and in-design DRCs. To address efficiency needs, the portfolio includes an advanced design differencing engine that enables design review with global teams using state of art visuals. Finally, to give designers more control over their design component annotation process, advanced annotation and auto-referencing capabilities are now available.

“This latest OrCAD release has given us confidence in getting a functional PCB without CAD errors the first time. Prior to this, we were always cautious that our PCB packages would introduce unforeseen errors and we would have to factor one spin of the board that was barely functional,” said David Edwards, founder and CEO of Abicom. “Cadence has built tools that are enabling us to develop better designs faster, while giving us a better understanding of expected performance. This advancement has saved us upwards of £3-8K per new board design.”

“OrCAD continues to be the clear choice for new and existing companies designing IoT, wearable and mobile products,” said Dirk Müller, CEO, FlowCAD EDA-Software Vertriebs GmbH. “The new flex and rigid-flex capabilities allow designers to create faster and smarter products in a timely and cost-effective manner.”

“Our customers are demanding solutions that address their broader system-design challenges,” said Steve Durrill, senior product engineering group director, SPB Solutions at Cadence. “The latest OrCAD release provides upfront virtual prototyping support in PSpice, support for high-speed interfaces and a comprehensive implementation solution for rigid/flex designs. We are confident this latest release of the OrCAD solution provides the time to market savings our customers require.”