iCD EDA Interfaces
"Increase impedance accuracy by up to 5% by importing iCD stackup definitions into your PCB design and simulation tools".
EDA software vendors generally ignore the materials that are used to fabricate a multilayer PCB. Instead they use 'Virtual' materials to build the stackup. In other words, the user picks a dielectric thickness and dielectric constant and bases their entire substrate design on a material that may not actually exist. This can lead to a major design change later in the PCB design process when the trace widths and spacing of critical signals needs to be modified to match the PCB fabricators recommendations.
Alternatively, choosing the 'Actual' materials that your preferred PCB Fabricator stocks can result in up to 5% better accuracy. The iCD Stackup Planner is delivered with an extensive Dielectric Materials Library (DML) containing over 36,225 commonly used rigid and flex core, prepreg and solder mask/coverlay materials up to 100GHz. This is arguably the most comprehensive list of material properties ever compiled. Here is a complete list of material manufacturers and product types, that are included in the iCD Stackup Planner (Nov 2020).
iCD Design Integrity provides a centralized, shared, Impedance Planning Environment that connects Materials, PDN Analysis, Stackup Planning, Signal Integrity, PCB Design and Fabrication consolidating the impedance control from schematic to fabrication. The impedance is planned pre-layout and flows through the design process to fabrication - achieving right first time design.
iCD Design Integrity software supports the most popular EDA software vendors by providing bi-directional interfaces to their applications allowing designers to transfer the substrate materials required for the correct trace impedance. iCD is a corporate member of the IPC-2581 Consortium and has been validated as being a software vendor that supports IPC-2581A and IPC-2581B formats for stackup exchange. Supporting IPC-2581B opens a new level of communication with PCB manufacturing and assembly.
iCD offers the following Interfaces:
Altium Designer 14-20 Rigid/flex substrates plus automatic design rule creation
Cadence Allegro 16.6+ using the IPC-2581B bi-directional interface
Cadence OrCAD Layout 16.6+ using the IPC-2581B bi-directional interface
IPC-2581A & IPC-2581B bi-directional interfaces
Mentor Graphics HyperLynx bi-directional interface to both LineSim and BoardSim
Mentor Graphics HyperLynx DRC export HyperLynx (.ffs and .stk) from iCD Stackup Planner
Mentor Graphics PADS bi-directional interface
Mentor Graphics Xpedition and PADS Professional import via the IPC-2581B interface
Microsoft Excel - export a comprehensive PCB Substrate Fabrication Drawing to Excel
Polar Instruments SpeedStack using the IPC-2581B bi-directional interface
ZMetrix TDR export to the Impedance Testing System for the validation of Impedance Test Coupons
Zuken CR8000 using the IPC-2581B bi-directional interface
Request a free 14-day evaluation.
iCD Interface Videos:
Altium Designer 14-20 Interface (7:15 mins)
Altium Designer Automatic Rules Creation (3:35 mins)
HyperLynx Interface 10:45 mins)
IPC-2581B Interface (Allegro, OrCAD, Xpedition, Zuken - 7:15 mins)
Mentor PADS Interface (11:30 mins)
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