Specctra is a commercial PCB auto-router originally developed by

John F. Cooper John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

and

David Chyan David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

of Cooper & Chyan Technology, Inc. (CCT) in 1989. The company and product were taken over by

Cadence Design Systems Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (stylized as cādence), headquartered in San Jose, California, is an American multinational corporation, multinational computational software company, founded in 1988 by the merger of SDA Systems and ECAD, Inc. The co ...

in May 1997. Since its integration into Cadence's Allegro PCB Editor, the name of the router is Allegro PCB Router. The latest version is 17.4 - 22.1 (October 20 2022). Specctra routes boards by presenting graphical data using a "shape-based" technology which represents graphical objects not as a set of points-coordinates, but more compact. This increases the efficiency of routing printed circuit boards with a high density of components, provides automatic routing of the same chain of tracks of different widths and more. Specctra uses adaptive algorithms implemented in multiple trace runs. The routing is carried out in three stages: # preview routing # autoroute # additional processing of autoroute results On the first pass, the connection of all conductors is performed, regardless of the presence of conflicts, which consist in crossing the conductors on one layer and breaking the gaps. On each subsequent pass, the auto-router tries to reduce the number of conflicts by breaking and re-building connections (the

ripup-and-retry router In electronic design, wire routing, commonly called simply routing, is a step in the design of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and integrated circuits (ICs). It builds on a preceding step, called placement, which determines the location of eac ...

method) and pushing the conductors by pushing the neighboring ones (the

push-and-shove router In electronic design, wire routing, commonly called simply routing, is a step in the design of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and integrated circuits (ICs). It builds on a preceding step, called placement, which determines the location of eac ...

method). Electromagnetic compatibility can be tested in Specctra through the "SPECCTRAQuest SI Expert" module. The program is compatible with many

design system A Design system is a set of interconnected Design pattern, patterns and shared practices coherently organized. Design systems aid in digital product design and development of products such as applications or websites. They may contain, but are not ...

s for printed circuit boards, thanks to the use of industrial-standard DSN design file format for project description and Do-files to specify routing strategies. The results are returned to the board editor via SES session files as well as RTE files. Protocol command execution is recorded in Did-file, which after editing can be used as new Do-files. The DSN/SES file formats are also supported by a number of other auto-routers including KONEKT ELECTRA,

Eremex TopoR TopoR (''Topo''logical ''R''outer) is an EDA program developed and maintained by the Russian company Eremex. It is dedicated to laying out a printed circuit board (PCB). The current version is 6.3.17875 as of 2017-09-20. It features a powerful ...

, Alfons Wirtz's FreeRouting and RL-based DeepPCB.

List of EDA tools supporting Specctra

* ACCEL PCB * Cadence Allegro * Cadnetix * CADVANCE V / α * DK-/DK-Magic * DREAM CAD *

EAGLE Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...

(via BRD_TO_DSN.ULP etc.) * KiCad *

Mentor BoardStation Siemens EDA is a US-based electronic design automation (EDA) multinational corporation for electrical engineering and electronics, headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon. Founded in 1981 as Mentor Graphics, the company was acquired by Siemens in ...

* MyPCB *

OrCAD Layout OrCAD Systems Corporation was a software company that made OrCAD, a proprietary software tool suite used primarily for electronic design automation (EDA). The software is used mainly by electronic design engineers and electronic technicians to ...

* PADS Perform / PowerPCB * PLANET * PLASMA * Protel Advanced PCB * Providence * SCS-1 *

TARGET 3001! TARGET 3001! is a CAD computer program for EDA and PCB design, developed by Ing.-Büro Friedrich in Germany. It supports the design of electronic schematics, PCBs, and device front panels. It runs under Windows and is available in English, German ...

* U-Art * ULTIboard * Vanguard PCB * WorkBrain * Zuken CR-3000 / CR-5000 * Zuken Visula / Zuken CadStar

References

External links

* http://www.cadence.com/products/pcb/pcb_design/pages/default.aspx Official website * http://www.dsioffe.narod.ru/myspecctra {{CAD software Electronic design automation software

List of EDA tools supporting Specctra

See also

References

Further reading

External links