TopoR (''Topo''logical ''R''outer) is an

EDA EDA or Eda may refer to: Computing * Electronic design automation * Enterprise Desktop Alliance, a computer technology consortium * Enterprise digital assistant * Estimation of distribution algorithm * Event-driven architecture * Exploratory ...

program developed and maintained by the Russian company Eremex. It is dedicated to laying out a

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in Electrical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a L ...

(PCB). The current version is 6.3.17875 as of 2017-09-20. It features a powerful

autorouter 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 each ...

and a set of tools intended to reduce the amount of effort needed for manual routing of a PCB. The most recognizable feature of TopoR is the absence of preferred routing directions, which results in unusual looking PCBs.

History

Work on a flexible topological router began in 1988, when 1996 saw the release of the first version of a topological router that actually came to be used by industrial enterprises. In 2002, the FreeStyle Router (FSR) by ''Диал Инжиниринг'' ("Dial Engineering") ran under

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

and successfully routed dual-layer boards, interfacing with

P-CAD P-CAD was the brand name of Personal CAD Systems, Inc., a California based manufacturer of electronic design automation software. It manufactured a CAD software available for personal computers. The company was divested into ACCEL Technologies wh ...

. This early router showed the advantages of an innovative approach to routing and high efficiency of the models, algorithms, and software implementation. A 1.44 MB

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

was enough for the program and accompanying examples. The company also announced plans to commercially release a ''FreeStyle Suite'' for Windows later the year. The last version of FSR for DOS, consisting of the router named ''SpeedWay'' and the layout editor named ''FreeStyle'' was version 1.6 as of 2003-09-26/2003-11-01. The first

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

version of the topological router was released in 2001 and renamed to ''TopoR''. TopoR 1.03 was available on 2003-09-26 and distributed through ElekTrade (ЭлекТрейд). The program routed not only dual-layer but also multi-layer printed circuit boards. TopoR was developed by a group called the ''FreeStyleTeam'', supervised by Sergey J. Luzin (Сергей Юрьевич Лузин), with Oleg B. Polubasov (Олег Борисович Полубасов) as initial FSR developer, as well as Paul I. Dmitriev (Павел Иванович Дмитриев), Gevorg S. Petrosyan (Геворг Самвелович Петросян), Michael S. Luzin (Михаил Сергеевич Лузин) and Andrew A. Lysenko (Андрей Александрович Лысенко). Version 3.0 was released in 2006. The software was commercially distributed by Prosoft Spb. (ПРОСОФТ СПб) in 2007. TopoR 4.0 added support to import/export DSN design and SES session files. Since TopoR 4.1 (2008) the software is further developed and maintained by Eremex, Ltd.

Features

TopoR can be used as an external autorouter for third-party layout editors or in conjunction with Eremex's own

schematic capture Schematic capture or schematic entry is a step in the design cycle of electronic design automation (EDA) at which the electronic diagram, or electronic schematic of the designed electronic circuit is created by a designer. This is done interactiv ...

and layout editor ''Delta Design'' (DD). TopoR imports input in Delta Design's FST format, as

Specctra Specctra is a commercial PCB auto-router originally developed by John F. Cooper and David Chyan of Cooper & Chyan Technology, Inc. (CCT) in 1989. The company and product were taken over by Cadence Design Systems in May 1997. Since its integration ...

ELECTRA Electra (; grc, Ήλέκτρα) is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies.Evans (1970), p. 79 She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, '' Electra'' by Sophocles and '' Electra'' by Euripides. She is also the centra ...

-compatible DSN design files, or in

PCB ASCII (2000, 2002, 2004),

PADS Pads (also called leg guards) are a type of protective equipment used in a number of sports and serve to protect the legs from the impact of a hard ball, puck, or other object of play travelling at high speed which could otherwise cause injuries t ...

PCB ASCII (3.5, 4.0, 5.0, 2005.0), or

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 ...

BRD XML formats (6.x). The resulting boards can be exported into Specctra/ELECTRA SES session files,

DXF AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a CAD data file format developed by Autodesk for enabling data interoperability between AutoCAD and other programs. DXF was introduced in December 1982 as part of AutoCA ...

, Gerber, P-CAD PCB ASCII (2000, 2002, 2004), PADS PCB ASCII (3.5, 4.0, 5.0, 2005.0). topor approximation lines

Routing of the wiring topology is done automatically and flexibly; angles are not limited to 90° and 45°. Efficient use of PCB space and absence of preferred routing directions in layers considerably reduces electromagnetic

crosstalk In electronics, crosstalk is any phenomenon by which a signal transmitted on one circuit or channel of a transmission system creates an undesired effect in another circuit or channel. Crosstalk is usually caused by undesired capacitive, induc ...

. TopoR routes all connections, even if this entails violating design constraints. Such violations can be automatically corrected later. When objects (such as components and vias) are moved around, wire length and shape are optimized automatically with appropriate clearance. The user is free to choose from two ways to calculate the wire shape: with or without arcs. The first method involves wires consisting of lines only. The other makes wires keep appropriate clearance when circling around pads; it consists of arcs and lines. TopoR simultaneously optimizes several alternative variants of the layout. Variants with the worst parameters (per total wire length and number of vias) will be removed. TopoR has an automatic

component placement Component placement is an electronics manufacturing process that places Electronic component, electrical components precisely on printed circuit boards (PCBs) to create electrical interconnections between functional Electronic component, components ...

feature. The procedure can be used both for all components of the board and only for components in a specific area. It is not comparable to the quality of the manual placement, but it can be used as a preparation step for manual placement. The minimum and desired clearances for each net can be specified. topor teardrops

TopoR automatically supports

trace necking In printed circuit boards, teardrops are typically drop-shaped features at the junction of vias (''teardrop vias'') or contact pads (''teardrop pads'') and traces (''teardrop traces''). The main purpose of teardrops is to enhance structural ...

, that is, it reduces the width of a wire that approaches a narrow pad (or one with a diameter that is less than the width of the wire), or when it passes through bottlenecks (for example, between the pads of a component). Wire-to-pad transitions use teardrop-style smoothing. The use of this procedure at the design stage helps avoid violations in design-rule checking when teardrops are added in the CAM editor. Topor bga

TopoR can recognize

ball grid array A ball grid array (BGA) is a type of surface-mount packaging (a chip carrier) used for integrated circuits. BGA packages are used to permanently mount devices such as microprocessors. A BGA can provide more interconnection pins than can be p ...

(BGA) component areas and apply a special strategy for routing them. This helps reduce the number of vias, the density of connections, and in some cases the number of routing layers. topor singlelayer

A special algorithm is used for routing single-layer boards minimizing the number of interlayer junctions or to find a single-layer routing.

Notes

References

External links

* (Former website of Dial Engineering, developers of the FreeStyle Router up to 2002.) * (Former website of the ''FreeStyleTeam'', developers of FreeStyleRouter and TopoR up to 2009.) * (Former 2009-2014 website for the TopoR router, as represented by Novarm, Ltd. and Eremex, Ltd. - unrelated to Anthony Blake's Toporouter.) * (since 2008) * (since 2008) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Topor Autorouters

History

Features

Similar solutions

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links