What are the differences between OrCAD and Allegro?

Hi,

What are differences between OrCAD and Allegro? Which is the better?

Regards.

allegro schematic history

Orcad Layout (Max) is a discontiued layout program that used to be part of the Orcad suite. When you say "Orcad" now, you're talking only about Orcad CIS schematic capture.

Allegro is the top-of-the-line (expensive) Cadence PCB layout software. It is difficult to learn, difficult to use, but powerful. Cadence now sells a stripped down version of Allegro with Orcad CIS to replace the discontinued Orcad Layout. The reduced capability version of Allegro sold to replace Orcad Layout is lacking most of the features that make Allegro powerful. What's left is just difficult to learn and difficult to use.

Unless you plan to learn Allegro well enough to work with it in industry, I suggest you look at less expensive and easier to use layout software such as Altium Designer, or PADS. Allegro designers make top dollar in industry, but the version of the software they use costs between $30K and $50K USD for all of the features.

allegro & orcad

Hi,

I'd like to invite your question to a yahoo group dedicated to OrCAD: **broken link removed**

Take a look at this message, which has an oppinion about board design packages currently on the market: **broken link removed** (the message archive is public, you can read it without joining the group).

- Nick

orcad to allegro

Hi Kender,

It's an interesting opinion, but a bit misinformed. Altium has always owned PCAD - you can verify that by going back to any old DOS version of PCAD and looking at the file with a text editor. They are also the same company that used to be called Protel - they just changed the name of the company as they began to grow. Altium hasn't "killed" Protel. What used to be called "Protel" has just evolved and has been recompiled from an 8bit DOS program, to a 16bit Windows program, to a 32 bit Windows program. It's still written in the same base language (Delphi), and almost all of the commands are still there and work the same way in Altium Designer as they did in the old 16 bit PFW. They're just trying to outgrow the image of "hobby software", and become one of the major players to challenge Cadence and Mentor.

PADS is hardly "dying a slow death". Mentor poured a bundle into rewriting the software to emulate the look and feel of Altium Designer. They also added some RF layout features to try and entice new users.

DxDesigner has nothing to do with Viewlogic PCB layout software. The original owner of DxDesigner schematic capture was Innoveda. They are the same company that originally owned CAM350 CAM Editor. Mentor bought Innoveda to acquire both products.

Viewlogic is what Mentor now calls Expedition - it's a PCB editor (and a pretty good one in my opinion). It was purchased by Mentor as a product from Viewlogic Systems, Inc.

In short - your Orcad discussion group guru is mostly wrong about all his statements. I don't have much respect for his opinion. He seems lacking in knowledge concerning the history of the software on which he comments.

I should also add that Mentor rejected Cadence's bid to buy them out almost immediately.

allegro or orcad

Excuse me but Viewlogic is *not* Expedition. When Mentor could not anymore supply the BoardStation series with the Specctra Autorouter because Cooper&Chyan sold it to Cadence, Mentor had to go out and buy Veribest. This product was renamed "Expedition", or WG2000 in the beginning.

allegro viewlogic

Thank you - you are absolutely right. I typed too quickly. I meant to say Veribest - it's the pcb layout software I was using when Mentor bought them out.

I guess that brings my credibility into question as well. Ironic how a slip of finger can screw up a perfectly good rant.

Viewlogic was, indeed, the daddy of DxDesigner.

why did cadence screw up orcad capture

House_Cat,
I don't mean to beat on you, since you are so humble!!!-)
However your so called "rant' about Allegro and OrCad is flawed at best. But I have made a decision not to answer this type of questions like, "what is best tool" and "what is best software to make PCB"????!! I leave it at that.
I am not sure if it effects your "credibility"-) though
Regards,

M

viewlogic mentor viewer

majnoon said:

House_Cat, ... your so called "rant' about Allegro and OrCad ...

Click to expand...

What House_Cat posted doesn't look like a rant. It's probably all verifiable facts. A the same time, these are the raw facts, and they don't seem to discriminate between the board design packages, unlike the post on OrCADexchange mentioned above.

majnoon said:

But I have made a decision not to answer this type of questions like, "what is best tool" and "what is best software to make PCB"????!! I leave it at that.

Click to expand...

I think the question "what is best software to make PCB?" is too simplistic. At the same time, it's impossible to answer, because each designer has his own preference and tolerance. I think, the question "what PCB packages will become intolerably outdated in 5 years" is much more useful.