Ecd302 unit 02(evaluate software packages)

Outcome 2
Evaluate ECAD Software Packages

Expectation after studying this outcome?
 Student able to evaluate ECAD software packages
and report on their performances
 Student able to interpret manufacturers’ user
instructions to set up correct working
environment.
 Student able to perform exercises to assess the
performance of ECAD software packages
 Student able to evaluate and report the results of
exercises

What to look out for?
 Some major aspects of ECAD software package to
evaluate:
 Suitability to the job requirement (pg 2-3)
 Compatibility to your hardware (pg 2-4)
 Capabilities of simulations (pg 2-6)
 Ease of use (pg 2-6) & (further discussion on pg 2-14)
 Project partitioning and organization, and hierarchical
design capability (pg 2-7)

Suitability to the job requirement (pg 2-3)
 Does the software package come with enough
features to cover all the most essential operations
of your job?
 So, the first thing to consider is of course the
category of software.
 As had been briefly discussed in the previous
outcome, we have 4 major groups of software:
 ASIC and IC design tools
 PLD and FPGA design tools
 Board-level schematic design tools
 PCB design tools

 To state the most obvious, for example, Multisim
is a board-level schematic design tool, so, if you
work for a firm that designs ASIC, Multisim is of
no use to you.
 And to state the less obvious, sometimes certain
software comes packed with more than one
function.
 For example, board-level schematic design tools
often come packed with PCB design tools as well.
And while one company may be strong in
producing software for the board-level schematic
design tool, its PCB design tools may not be as
good.

 So, you will have to put it to the scale yourself:
 Does your job requirements lean towards
schematic design and simulation and
troubleshooting, or more towards PCB layout?
 If your job mainly involves PCB layout re-routing,
a software that has the best schematic simulation
features but has a difficult-to-use PCB layout tool
would be but a white elephant to you.

Compatibility to your hardware (pg 2-4)
 Does the software run on your PC/network
platform?
 Can the software be incorporated seamlessly into
your PC/network?
 Is the minimum hardware requirement within the
budget of your project?
 If you run the software at its minimum hardware
requirement (if applicable), does the operation
suffer any undesirable effects?

 The next biggest disaster to buying software of the
wrong category is getting a software that does not run
on your PC platform.
 As a discredit to Microsoft, most of the best ECAD
software were developed for UNIX.
 To put it mildly, one is considered more stable that
the other.
 And Linux, although fast catching on in the market
share, is still in the process of convincing existing big
names in ECAD software developers to spend valuable
resources developing ECAD software for Linux
platform. So, do not mistakenly get the wrong
software for your platform.

 The obvious mistake aside, sometimes it is not
totally implausible to switch YOUR PC/network
platform to suit the ECAD system that you think
best suits your job requirement.
 The first and foremost consideration is of course
the budget and ROI (Return Of Investment)
consideration.
 Then in certain offices, people might want to
continue using things like office tools.
 To put it simply, calculate the ROI, and get some
opinion polls.

 Then there is the question of whether your
hardware could support the software.
 Some evaluation needs to be done to assess the
speed of simulation when the ECAD software runs
on your PC/network.
 Merely able to operate the ECAD is often not good
enough.
 Especially when your design gets big and multi-
leveled and complex, you must make sure your
PC/network has enough “brawn” to handle the
simulations. And needless to say, stability must
come alongside with speed.

 The most cursed thing to happen is to have the
PC hanging or power failure in the middle of an
important simulation.
 So, you must also ensure hardware resilience and
stability, and also ensure the stability of power
supply.
 Network backup is also very crucial to ensure that
you do not lose any important files due to human
error or hardware failure or virus attack.

Capabilities of simulation (pg 2-6)
 First off, you would like a wide range of
simulation capabilities then, beyond that, merely
having the right features is not enough; those
features should work with a desirable speed and
performance level.
 You should test the simulation capabilities of the
software packages using benchmark circuits or
designs to measure the performance in terms of
accuracy of results and speed of processing.

Capabilities of simulation (pg 2-6)
 Areas to look out for includes the range of
features, the range of simulation, resolution of
simulation, speed, accuracy and stability of the
various simulations.
 This will be further discussed with more examples
in page 2-9.

Ease of use (pg 2-6)
 As you are evaluating and using the software
package, pause from time to time to record what
you feel about the user-friendliness of the user
interface.
 If the software easy to control?
 Is the component library easy to access?
 Are the simulations and tests easy to setup?
 Are the test results easy to access and provides
you with enough information at a glance?
 Does any of its features make it easy for you to
create and manipulate large and complex
designs?

 Ease of use is a very subjective thing, and yet, you
cannot discount its importance just because of its
subjectivity.
 And really, because of its subjectivity, there is no
absoluteness when it comes to judging whether an
ECAD software is easy to use, or, is user-friendly.
 As proof of the unpredictable subjectivity of the
question of ease-of-use, I know of a left-handed
friend who simply refuses to change his mouse-
configuration into left-handed mouse, for the reason
that he was so used to using a right-handed mouse, a
left-handed mouse would hinder him more than
helping him.

 Hence, it is very important for the potential users
themselves to sit down with certain evaluation
forms and make a record of what they like and
dislike about the software, and at the end of the
day, see whether the likes outweigh the dislikes.

Project partitioning and organization, and
hierarchical design capability (pg 2-3)
 How easy are they to use?
 How seamlessly can different hierarchical levels
be integrated during simulated tests?
 If you work in team, how well does the software
network and keep track of the design changes
going on over the network of designers?

 How good is the networking capability of the ECAD
software you are evaluating?
 The only way to evaluate this is to have a team sit down
around the network and rehearse out a known-working
project, and have them comment on the following
aspects:
 Is any changes by one member in the team
immediately and accurately reflected on the
workspace of the other members?
 How are conflicting actions resolved?
 How easy is it to trace the performed actions and
tasks?
 Does the software accurately log all actions for future
tracing?

 How easy is it to view various partitions of the project,
especially those of the other members in the team?
 Is there an easy, integrated way to communicate
effectively with member on the team?
 How easy is it for the team members to access any part
of the overall design hierarchy, and how is the
accessibility controlled?
 Is the accessibility control bogging down any one in the
team?
 Or, if the accessibility control is a bit loose, does it
compromise design integrity or threatens to jeopardize
the safe-guarding of individual work?

Conclusion (pg 2-8)
 Oftentimes, satisfaction is a very subjective thing.
 So, other than relying on factual evaluations such
as the 5 aspects discussed above, it would also
help tremendously to have the users of the ECAD
software rehearse known-working projects on the
software and comment on the more intangible
things such as whether they are comfortable with
the various control interfaces, the software layout
(even the colors!!), the way results were logged
and reported, etc., etc.

Conclusion (pg 2-8)
 And then there is also the after-sale support and
possibility of customization.
 Big names mean nothing if they cannot stoop to
carry out customizations for lesser-scale
businesses.
 So, sometimes a good after-sale support and
customization could cover for certain short-
coming in terms of features.
 Do not forget to take this into consideration as
well.

Further Discussion on Simulation
Capability
 Generally speaking, we should look at the following:
 Range of simulation capabilities (pg 2-9)
 Range of simulation (pg 2-11)
 Resolution of simulation (pg 2-11)
 Speed of simulation (pg 2-11)
 Accuracy of simulation (???)
 Stability of simulation (pg 2-13)

Range of simulation capabilities (pg 2-9)
 Some of the most common simulations performed by an
ECAD system include:
 DC analysis
 AC analysis
 Transient analysis
 Fourier analysis
 Noise analysis
 Distortion analysis
 Sensitivity
 DC sweep
 Parameter sweep
 Temperature sweep
 Poles and Zeros analysis
 Transfer function
 Worst case analysis
 Monte Carlo analysis

 Most ECAD software also comes with simulated
instruments such as:
 Multimeter
 Oscilloscope
 Function generator
 Bode plotter
 Logic analyzer
 Logic converter
 Wattmeter
 Distortion analyzer
 Spectrum analyzer
 Word generator

 Is more the merrier? Not always.
 It again boils down to what kind of work do you
do most.
 And sometimes, you may even need to consider
the individual performance of each analysis and
instruments.
 In the daily work of your position, what analysis
or instrument would normally be used the most
frequent?
 These are the analyses or instruments you have
to pay extra attention to when evaluating.
 Test them rigorously.

Range of simulation (pg 2-11)
 This refers to the maximum range of the
frequency span, or the time span it is able to log
without adverse effect towards the processing
speed or the stability of the simulation.
 To put it simply, if you are involved in designing
circuits that operate in the RF and microwave
region, this is a big concern, as not all software
may simulate to that region, or may not be as
fast or accurate.

Resolution of simulation (pg 2-11)
 For example, when doing transient analysis, what
is the maximum time resolution an ECAD
software could achieve, or could perform with
satisfactory speed?
 You would take this into serious consideration if
your works require you to pay attention to minute
voltage spikes in the design or if your works are
constrained by stringent requirement on the rise-
time, fall-time, propagation delay, etc.

Resolution of simulation (pg 2-11)
 Another area of resolution is the component
values. To what accuracy can you set the
component values?
 Or the voltage and current reading resolutions; to
what resolution is the simulation performed?
 Does it fulfill your job requirement?

Speed of simulation (pg 2-11)
 At what ratio is the simulation time to real-time?
 And if any simulation is required to run in real-
time, how much does it compromise the accuracy
of the simulation?
 Sometimes, simple tests could tell you quite a lot.

For example, the following charts show the relationship
between component counts (with various passive-to-active-
component-ratio) and the simulation-time-to-real-time-ratio,
of the Multisim software, run on a platform of Microsoft NT
with a 500MHz processor and a RAM capacity of 128MB:
Simulation Speed
0
200
400
600
800
1000
0 10 20 30 40
Component count
Simulation-to-Realtime
ratio
1:3 to 1:4
3:4 to 3:5
Active-to-Passive
component ratio
You could see from the chart that when the active-to-passive component
ratio is low (between 1:3 to 1:4), the increase in component count does
not affect much the simulation-to-real time ratio (staying around 1
simulation second to every 200 real seconds). But when the active-to-
passive component ratio is high (between 3:4 to 3:5), the amount of
simulation required for the active components starts to take its toll, in
effectual slowing the simulation rate at an exponential incline.

Stability of simulation (pg 2-13)
 And sometimes, when speed is not possible, we
would at least require stability.
 If we must run a simulation or test-run over-
night, we would not want the simulation to suffer
any error and then aborts itself.

Further Discussion on Ease-of-Use (pg 2-14)
 As mentioned before, the question of whether an
ECAD software is user-friendly is a very subjective
consideration.
 But it is not totally impossible to evaluate whether
a certain ECAD software is suitable to your work
place.
 Next page shows an example of the actual
“grumbling” of a user when using the MultiSIM
software.
 All you need is to have your team of people sit
down to the software and jot down all the annoyed
feelings or the amazed feelings spontaneously and
impromptu when using the software, and you
would have a rather frank review of the software.

Ecd302 unit 02(evaluate software packages)

Assignment 2
 10% of the total coursework marks.
 Maximum 2 persons in a group.
 Provide the web address of information
gathered.
 Marks will be deduct if the lecturer finds
out any “KES TIRU-MENIRU”. In some
case, zero marks for the particular group
of student.
 Cut-and-paste directly from the source,
marks will be deduct.

Ecd302 unit 02(evaluate software packages)

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