Twelve ways to elevate your electronic design process using PADS Professional Premium

PADS™ Professional Premium software provides engineers with an intelligent, integrated, collaborative PCB design flow that meets the needs of hardware design engineers and small workgroups.

This paper showcases twelve ways PADS Professional Premium covers your needs whether you are working on the simplest or the most complex PCB designs.

When using PADS Professional Premium, designers have access to standard PCB design functionality, such as schematic definition and physical layout, as well previously optional add-on features (now standard) and all of the latest cloud apps, including:

Schematic definition

• Access to everything you need: Circuit design and simulation, Component selection, library management, and signal integrity planning.

Part selection and library creation

• Libraries furnish the building blocks behind successful product designs. Our cloud app, PartQuest Portal Essential, makes it easy to find the symbol, IPC compliant footprint, and 3D model for the components that you need, so you can create products faster.

Component sourcing data

• When creating a schematic, the Supply Chain cloud application, which is integrated directly within the schematic tool, provides engineers with real-time component sourcing data, empowering them to make informed decisions about their selected components when the cost of making changes is lowest.

Verification using simulation

• Signal integrity analysis is integrated with both the schematic and layout tools, allowing pre-layout analysis during part and model selection, assistance in determining signal constraints, and post-layout analysis to verify that designs meet the requirements.

Product variant management

• Companies today maximize the value of their designs by creating products with different levels of functionality or price points based on the same electrical design.

Collaboration and version management

• Seamlessly collaborate with teammates worldwide by utilizing design data management with Connect for PADS Professional Premium.

PCB design

• Designing a printed circuit board can be a complex task if the application you are using does not provide the appropriate automation. Simplify the entire process by providing automation where it’s the most important.

Routing automation

• Can reduce PCB layout time by up to 80 percent. With electronics design becoming more complex, automation is a major advantage for both experienced designers and engineers who “do-it-all.”

MCAD Integration

• Both the PCB and the mechanical engineer stay in sync, leveraging best-in-class data exchange standards, making collaboration convenient, accurate and effective.

Rigid-flex PCB design

• Accelerate layout of a rigid flex board with a system that understands bend areas and other unique flex geometries, including placing irregular angles and the ability to employ rich routing capabilities for rigid-flex designs.

RF design

• Electronic devices using gigahertz wireless technology have increased dramatically. This means that RF designers need access to PCB design tools that enable wireless design automation.

FPGA/PCB co-design

• Bridging the gap between the FPGA and PCB domains is crucial for optimizing an FPGA I/O within the context of a board.

As a bonus, this paper also includes a unique success story by Ben Dowding, chief executive officer (CEO) and lead engineer at Taylor Dowding Innovation Limited (TDI), who leads an electronic design and software development services consultancy that faces complex design challenges daily.