PCB Schematic Generation – Schematic Generation Module™

About the PCB Schematic Generation – Schematic Generation Module™

Schematic Generation Module helps electrical engineers, PCB designers and test engineers to visualize, explore and debug netlist and schematic data as well as publish it. The program supports multiple netlist and schematic formats including OrCAD, PADS, Powerlogic, DxDesigner /Viewdraw, PCAD, etc. and standard netlist formats such as IPC-D-356. It generates intelligent schematics from standard PCB netlists and presents them within its own visual environment.

In addition, Schematic Generation Module exports schematic designs to searchable PDF schematics to be navigated using PDF Viewers. Schematic Generation Module produces PDF files that can keep hierarchy, net attributes, and component attributes of the original design, and at the same time, allow net tracing on or between the pages.

Benefits

• View schematics from different vendors in one tool
• Publish an entire schematic design to a single intelligent PDF file that can be opened in free PDF Viewers
• Password protect PDFs
• Output hierarchy, net and Component attributes to PDF
• Allow net tracing in PDF files
• Publish color and B/W PDF schematics
• Generate intelligent PCB-style schematics from PCB netlists
• Generate regular schematics from IPC-D-356 and EDIF netlists
• Save generated schematics to PDFs
• Compare PCB netlists, IPC-D-356 netlists, EDIF netlists, schematic netlists, schematics
• Use scripting for batch-mode PDF production

Schematic Design Viewing

Schematic Generation Module can be used as a vendor independent Viewer, and supports viewing of PADS Powerlogic, DxDesigner / Viewdraw, OrCAD, PCAD PDIF, Altium Designer, EAGLE, EDIF200, EDIF300, EdaXML and other formats.

The Viewer environment is very intuitive and simple to work with. The Design Tree Browser and Search engine make finding any object simple. Using Schematic Generation Module, you can view design hierarchy, occurrence data, or can view design schematic pages layer by layer. You can navigate to any net or component in your schematic with a few mouse clicks. A detailed report can be generated for any object in a netlist or schematic. The Viewer environment supports simple mark-ups that later can be saved in a PDF file.

Creating Schematics from PCB and IPC356 Netlists

Schematic Generation Module supports multiple PCB netlist formats, IPC-D-356 netlist and EDIF netlists as well. A user opens a PCB Netlist in the tool and can use Netlist Browser to navigate through the data with reports available for every object.

Schematic generation is intelligent and configurable. The built-in algorithm recognizes patterns in the PCB netlist and generates a schematic in such a way that it is simple to navigate for a PCB designer or a test engineer. The colors, page size, title block, net/bus recognition, and other parameters, can be selected for each generation run in accordance with user preferences. Symbols can be built using different vendor-styles in order for generated schematics to look familiar to the user of a particular vendor system.

A user can navigate through the generated schematic within the Schematic Generation Module environment or output that schematic to PDF with net tracing capability preserved.

Schematic and Netlist Tools

Schematic Generation Module's Netlist Comparator is a useful tool. Users can compare two PCB netlists, two IPC-D-356 netlists or even schematics from one system with PCB netlists from another. This is especially useful when users reside in heterogeneous environments and are working with schematic capture and layout tools from different vendors. The flexible configuration options help users to control the depth of comparison processes. Another utility is a customizable BOM (Bill of Materials).