Mentor Graphics vs. Cadence Design Systems
Fredrick Ackourey
We are in the process of choosing a high end cad/eda system. Cadence and
Mentor are the two top choices. Could anyone who uses such systems let me
know what you think? What are their weaknesses? strengths? Who will survive
long term? How is the service? what kind of future do they provide for?
Thanks
Fred Ackourey
platypus
heres my 2cents on Mentor. Never used Cadence. IHMO, Mentor is very
expensive
and can be difficult to use. The other drawback to Mentor is
it only runs under UNIX. Why is this a issue? Because in my opinon being
able to work out of my home is important and I have a PC at home not
a Sun workstation. Mentor does have a new tool called Personal
Architect that runs on a PC, but it was developed by a third party(which
I understand Mentor now owns) and from what I hear there are issues with
working with other Mentor tools. Infact you need utilities to translate
files back and forth.
If I remember correctly, there was an artical in EE Times announcing
Cadence
supports both Sun and NT. I'm sure there are issues with Candence, ever
tool
seems to have them.
I also own Orcad Capture and Layout. I've just finshed a 12 layer board
and I did it for $5k.
We use Mentor here at work. I think the reason has more to do with the
fact that
we look at the price tag and say "if it cost a lot it must be good."
Plus, since
UNIX was developed here at Bell Labs we believe its the only real
operating
system.
Pascal Dornier
> Fredrick Ackourey wrote:
> >
> > We are in the process of choosing a high end cad/eda system. Cadence and
> > Mentor are the two top choices. Could anyone who uses such systems let me
> > know what you think? What are their weaknesses? strengths? Who will survive
> > long term? How is the service? what kind of future do they provide for?
Cadence Allegro is a pretty powerful PCB layout tool. Learning curve
can be rather steep though, and so is the price. The service ?
1-800-NEXT-REV. Rate of product improvement ? Very, very slow.
In my previous life, we used OrCAD SDT for the schematics (more
productive and cheaper than workstation based schematic capture),
and Allegro for the layout.
Now I use OrCAD SDT + OrCAD Layout.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Pascal Dornier pdor...@best.com http://www.best.com/~pdornier
Your Spec + PC Engines = Custom Embedded PC Hardware
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Andreas Thiel
Fredrick Ackourey wrote:
>
> We are in the process of choosing a high end cad/eda system. Cadence and
> Mentor are the two top choices. Could anyone who uses such systems let me
> know what you think? What are their weaknesses? strengths? Who will survive
> long term? How is the service? what kind of future do they provide for?
>
>
> Fred Ackourey
--
Are you _absolutely_ shure you _really_ need a so-called high-end
system?
We are working with Cadence Tools (Concept/Allegro/SigNoise/...), around
20 licenses each.
Our experience so far (system has been installed roughly 3 years ago)
is (I think those problems are symptomatic to all the _big_ tools not
only Cadence):
- at least two EE's are needed fulltime for keeping the system running
- average designtime at least roughly doubled compared to the former
(cheap) CadStar solution
- the system is highly unstable (crashes, unpredictable behaviour)
- steep learning curve (dont't expect a reasonable result from an
autorouter within the first months!)
some remarks:
of course, you get a lot of additional possibilities with those tools
especially regarding simulation. But will you really have the time to
set up all the simulation models you need for this?
as a university we have a very complex computer infrastructure,
therefore we require software written with some common rules of "good"
programming praxis in mind. This means, despite Cadence is mainly an
X-application it relies on many specific environmental settings that
interact badly with other software products. Presumably a stand-alone
solution would be more stable.
The Cadence hotline is really good. Unfortunately they can't change the
program on the fly.
conclusions:
if your designs are not very high-speed (i.e. you don't need to extract
transmission-line models from layout and other funny things) or very
sophisticated (e.g. many many layers, complicated MCM-builups, etc.)
where you need the configurability of a _big_ tool) look for one of
those nice NT programs (e.g. CadStar, Protel, OrCad,...). And if you go
for Cadence or Mentor be sure you find some smart guys who install this
stuff and keep it running...
unfortunately, i need all this high-speed and MCM stuff, so i've the
pleasure of spending my time with Cadence...
cheers
- andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andreas Thiel
Electronics Laboratory | Institut fuer Elektronik
ETH Zurich | ETH Zuerich
Gloriastrasse 35 | Gloriastrasse 35
CH-8092 Zurich | CH-8092 Zuerich
Switzerland |
Phone: ++41 1 63 26658 | Tel.: (01) 63 26658
FAX: ++41 1 63 21210 | FAX.: (01) 63 21210
e-mail: th...@ife.ee.ethz.ch
WWW-homepage: http://www.ife.ee.ethz.ch/~thiel/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel Kolstad
Andreas Thiel <th...@ife.ee.ethz.ch> wrote in article
<334B87...@ife.ee.ethz.ch>...
> Fredrick Ackourey wrote:
> >
> > We are in the process of choosing a high end cad/eda system. Cadence
and
> > Mentor are the two top choices.
> Our experience so far (system has been installed roughly 3 years ago)
> is (I think those problems are symptomatic to all the _big_ tools not
> only Cadence):
> - at least two EE's are needed fulltime for keeping the system running
> - average designtime at least roughly doubled compared to the former
> (cheap) CadStar solution
> - the system is highly unstable (crashes, unpredictable behaviour)
> - steep learning curve (dont't expect a reasonable result from an
> autorouter within the first months!)
One of the main reasons I dropped ECE 554 (fancy digital design, or
something like that) at the University of Wisconsin is that I severely
underestimated the time commitment necessary to get Mentor to work for. I
very much agree with Andreas' sentiments!
Of course, there were plenty of other people who did take the course and
slugged through Mentor. But I had far more time to engage in more noble
tasks, such as eating pizza.
Mentor is definitely a cool package, however.
---Joel Kolstad
Bob Kinney
Fredrick Ackourey wrote:
>
> We are in the process of choosing a high end cad/eda system. Cadence and
> know what you think? What are their weaknesses? strengths? Who will survive
> long term? How is the service? what kind of future do they provide for?
>
> Thanks
>
> Fred Ackourey
I've been watching with interest what sort of replies would turn up on
this question. I would really like to hear from someone using the
"high-end" programs compare it with the PCAD toy-high-end programs.
Surely, there must be experts out there that can appreciate the
additional fuctionality of their high-caliber tools. Where are all of
you hiding?
Scott
Well Fred, in general I only have about 15 minutes a month to wade
through newsgroups. I posted the findings of my companies (One of the
Fortune 500) benchmark here in December. We did full blown benchmarks
(except where noted) of:
Mentor Graphics
Cadence (Benchmark Refused)
Zuken-Redac
Harris EDA (5+ yrs current use)
PADs
Veribest (Wholly owned sub. of Intergraph)
Essentially I agree with the comments that I have seen posted by others
up to this point. Our final decision was with Veribest. Their router
screams and isn't owned by a competitor (Mentor's router is Cooper Chyan
currently under buyout by Cadence.). The system runs on NT which means
I can buy three times the stations for the same money. I am !very!
impressed with the several facets of the company that I have dealt with;
sales, marketing, training organization, management, customer support,
and "outside services".
This system deserves a THOROUGH evaluation by ALL companies interested
in CAD systems that are more than toys.
While my opinion is stated here, it is not necessarily that of my
companies; but we are buying over sixteen seats.
S
Fredrick Ackourey
Bob-
I received many great responses to this post. I believe people what to
remain anonymous as many have asked the same in their email to me. Some of
the 15 responses were as many as two full pages with great arguments on
both sides. I would love to share them, however, I must respect the wishes
of the authors' who requested the information be private.
Fred
Bob Kinney <b...@dgii.com> wrote in article <334D42...@dgii.com>...
Gatedrive
Oh God if I had only known ....
We use Mentor for design captire and PCB Layout (after about 2 years, I
can finally route a card, we have 2 full time designers but the engineers
want to route as well)
The tool is very expensive for the value it provides.
To add any features is very expensive.
To fix almost any problem in using the tool requires the purchase of new
features (LMS, printer drivers, etc.)
We hired a consultant from the UK (not on Mentor's payroll so he wouldn't
try to sell us anything) to help us sort the thing out. Key points:
1. You must decide upfront how you want your design process to flow
2. THEN pick a tool to help you achieve that.
The tool does have nice features ( design checking, auto-router, auto
renumbering, large desings etc.) but is loaded with bugs (that you will
eventually learn to work around - try auto routing a single-sided card -
Ha HA HA HA!)
In order to "obtain the full benefit" from the system - YOU WILL HAVE TO
HIRE MORE PEOPLE TO SUPPORT IT THAN YOU ALREADY HAVE. This includes at
least a Librarian (high level) and a library entry / checking person. This
is quite confusing to management since they will have to dish out at least
$250,000 for 2 layout seats and 10 Design Architect licenses.
If I had to do it over - I would look into PC-based tools like Design
Center.
My Opinion
Steve
Alex Ramos
Hey Scott.
Any chance you could e-mail me or repost the results of your benchmark?
I need to buy a layout package here pretty soon. Thanks.
Alex.
Scott wrote:
> Well Fred, in general I only have about 15 minutes a month to wade
> through newsgroups. I posted the findings of my companies (One of the
> Fortune 500) benchmark here in December. We did full blown benchmarks
--
Alex Ramos
Alphatronics Incorporated
Printed Circuit Board Solutions
810-588-0405 http://www.alphatronics.com