In terms of automatically arranging components a force directed graph
algorithm may work quite nicely, especially if the algorithm is seeded
with the layout of components on the schematic.
A simplistic version would be to just arrange components on board sheet
as to their position on the schematic sheets.
On Tue, 6 Mar 2018 05:07 Andy Peters, <devel@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:devel@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> On Mar 5, 2018, at 10:49 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>
> I was thinking one level of abstraction higher where I just input my
> design requirements and it spits out a schematic, full simulation to
> match the design requirements, and a completed board layout. That
would
> make my job a *lot* easier. ;)
Maybe it can do my FPGA design for me, and also write firmware for
the ARM processor too! Why am I doing all of this hard work when I
could be drinking coffee and reading the New York Times?
> All kidding aside, I was told by a very highly skilled board designer
> not to waste our time with auto-routers because no one actually uses
> them except for the simplest designs with lots of free board space and
> few or no routing restrictions. This is someone who uses Altium
in his
> day job and has laid out far more boards than I have.
At the previous day job, we did VME and CompactPCI single-board
computers, and the layout people took advantage of full-up Specctra
autorouting. The designs had a lot of wide parallel buses and
suchlike which could be autorouted, but there was still plenty of
stuff on those boards which needed to be routed manually. And
setting up constraints for the autorouter was still a couple of days
work.
At the current job everything is smaller. Each product has multiple
boards that need to connect correctly. Boards are mixed signal, they
have power supply parts, there are connectors that poke through the
enclosure, etc etc etc and suffice it to say we never autoroute.
Assisted routing, like the Kicad push-and-shove, and Altium�s �bus
routing� (a feature I�d like to see in Kicad, for sure!) goes a long
way.
> I'm guessing auto-routers appeal to hobbyists rather than
professionals.
How many questions on forums do you see from hobbyists asking about
how to autoroute, or wondering if the results from the autorouter
are good?
-a
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