Re: [PROTEL EDA USERS]: blind vias w/ Protel / Specctra

["Michael Reagan" <edsi@netstorm.net>]

Todd,
Rather than spending time editing the dsn file for blind vias,  here is what
I do.  Assign several thru hole via definitions/sizes in the design rules.
View these in the dsn file as Via1, Via2, Via3, etc.,  and only edit these
vias as blind/ burried by changing the appropriate  layers.
Also don't worry about the stack up transferring over to spectra. Spectra
doesn't care what the order is.

And rather than editing out every via comment in the dsn file, find out
which via is the default culprit assigned to every net ,  and use spectra
command to exclude this via, or use the pull down menu in spectra.

As far as classes, I believe you  are right  the classes are broken down to
net level.   Is that so bad?  The end result is like executing lower level/
machine code.   It works the same.

Also make sure you have the latest version of spectra because versions up to
8.0  did not support blind vias very well.  The last few versions do a great
job.

Mike Reagan

EDSI Frederick


----- Original Message -----
From: Todd Conard <tec@tec-tronics.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list proteledausers
<proteledausers@techservinc.com>
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2000 12:55 PM
Subject: [PROTEL EDA USERS]: blind vias w/ Protel / Specctra


> I am having difficulties with the Protel / Specctra translator.  In the
> following areas:
>
> 1. Blind / buried vias are not supported. Blind / buried vias definintions
do
> not exist in the DSN file exported to Specctra.  To get around this
problem I
> have been editing the DSN file and adding the defintions directly.  This
is very
> tedious and prone to errors as I must also remove the use_via rule for
each net,
> typically taking 2-3 hours.
> 2. Layers are not implemented correctly.  The layer stack up from Protel
is not
> written to the Specctra DSN file correctly.  I have to manually reorder
the
> layers in the design file prior to importing into Specctra.
> 3. Classes are not implemented.  Protel does not transfer the class
definitions
> to the Specctra DSN file so that addition rules can be added or modified
within
> the autorouter.
> 3. Rules are not implemented correctly.  Protel automatically converts its
rule
> definitions to individual net rules.  This is very annoying, as mentioned
in #1,
> it compounds the error of not implementing blind/buried vias but
instantiating
> the mistake within every single net.
>
> This is only what I have found so far.  I am very fearful of the
additional
> problems that I will encounter.  Will I route the board in Specctra to
> completion only to find that I can't get it back to Protel for gerber
> generation?  If I make a schematic or footprint change, I will be spending
> another 2-3 hours editing the DSN file.  What happens if I edit the DSN
file
> incorrectly?  This process should not require such tedious manual editing.
>
> It has been a week and I still wait for support from Protel on these
issues.  I
> have searched diligently for detailed documention to no avail.  If there
is
> anybody out there that knows how to solve these problems or more
immediately how
> to get around them, please let me know.
>
> Thank you all,
>
> Todd Conard
> Si Solutions
> tec@s-i-solutions.com
> 813-630-1911
>
>
>
>