Design suite embeds its own place and route editor

Zuken has made a major productivity upgrade to its Visula enterprise-wide printed circuit board design suite.

Zuken has made a major productivity upgrade to its Visula enterprise-wide printed circuit board (PCB) design suite.

In addition to ease-of-use enhancements, the updated tool suite, Visula 7.0, now features an embedded place and route editor, PR Editor XR, and the Hot-Stage virtual prototyping tool.

The place and route editor delivers improved routing functionality for faster completion of dense and complex PCBs, and the Hot-Stage tool facilitates a constraints-driven design process where potential signal integrity, EMC and manufacturing problems can be identified and corrected early in the design flow.

This eliminates unnecessary design iterations and results in faster time to market.

Ease of use improvements in the new version include damage repair, additional INI file settings for the layout editor and the addition of new, switchable toolbars with on-screen tool help.

There is also improved Windows font support.

The library tools are now easier to use with support for Windows XP as a database server and improvements in search functionality.

The design technology editor now features pad copy enhancement and automatic removal of legacy analysis data.

These improvements make design more productive, particularly for infrequent users.

PR Editor XR 1.4 introduces Activ-45, an automated 45-degree routing function, to the Visula tool suite.

The use of an embedded router eliminates the need for a separate tool, resulting in reduced errors from importing and exporting design data, and significant time savings.

PR Editor XR 1.4 allows batch checks to be made in embedded mode, can check against actual copper text vectors, and can locate errors by code, all of which lead to significantly enhanced productivity.

Hot-Stage is a high-speed, constraints-driven virtual prototyping tool that facilitates "what if" analysis of design changes at the schematic stage.

It ensures that design constraints can be maintained throughout the workflow.

This results in tightly integrated schematic and layout functions, high-quality designs and correct-by-construction boards that do not need time-consuming and costly rework.

The enhancements to Visula 7.0 demonstrate Zuken's ongoing commitment to customers that use this established board design solution.

The company also continues to offer a evolution option to its CR-5000 tool suite.

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