Duration: 15 Minutes | Version Required: 17.4
There are only so many hours to your workday, limited designers, and stricter schedules. It is more important than ever to speed up your design process where you can. Routing dense, complex boards is a time-consuming process; however, with the interactive routing capabilities available in OrCAD, routing no longer takes a significant time investment. OrCAD interactive routing capabilities provide engineers the advantage they need to complete routing with intelligent, guided automation.
This document is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to utilize interactive routing in OrCAD PCB Designer Professional. For this workshop, download the design files and use the provided design, InteractiveRouting_Start.BRD, to follow along. To view the completed design, select InteractiveRouting_Finish.BRD.
- Open the provided design file, InteractiveRouting_Start.BRD, in OrCAD PCB Designer Professional.
- Select Route > Connect from the menu (F3).
- Select the via with Net FM_CPU_THROTTLE_N.
- Click to place trace.
Note: Select the Options Tab to specify preferred routing methods like hug, push and shove and more.
- Right click and select Next when finished (CTRL-F2).
Note: If Next is not an option, make sure the Application Mode is set to General Edit. Select Setup> Application Mode > General Edit.
- Route the remaining yellow and purple traces. Click and drag to create a box and make the selection.
- Click to place traces.
Note: If you make a mistake, right click and select Oops (F8). Traces can be adjusted after placement by selecting Route > Slide from the menu. Having trouble placing the traces? Try making a smaller selection.
- Right click and select Next (CTRL+F2).
- Select all the yellow and purple traces.
- Click to place the traces and continue routing.
- Right click and select Single Trace Mode.
- With net FM_CPU_THROTTLE_N selected, click to place the trace and finish the route.
Note: To change the selected trace, right click and select Change Control Trace. Click the desired trace.
- Click to place the next trace.
- When near the BGA, right click and select Scribble Mode.
- Move the mouse to scribble the trace through the BGA.
- Click to place.
- Finish Routing the traces.
- Click and drag a box to select the three green traces.
- Click to route the traces.
- Right click and select Via Pattern à Diagonal Right.
- Double click to activate the vias. Click to place.
- In the Options Tab, change the layer to In2.
- Click to place the traces and finish routing to the next set of vias.
- Right Click and select Done (F6).
- Select the Visibility Tab. Check All on In2 to view the completed traces.
Routing dense, complex boards is no longer a time-consuming process with OrCAD. With its interactive routing capabilities, engineers are now armed with the advantage they need to complete routing with intelligent, guided automation.
If you would like more tutorials, visit our walk-through page to view additional OrCAD and PSpice video tutorials and download design files.
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