Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/929192
JANUARY 2018 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 31 optimize the routing while obeying the design rules. This is how Situs works, with an addi- tional path to straighten traces for 90°/45° angles . Still, for simple boards like the one shown in Figure 6, and for users who take the time to learn how to correctly set up the PCB rules and constraints along with different routing strate- gies, it does do a decent job. The current generation of routing automa- tion recognizes the need to have more interac- tive user input to determine paths. The Acti- veRoute tool in Altium Designer uses path-cost optimized topological routing driven by user Figure 5: Rectilinear vs. topological routing (Source: Altium LLC 2017). Figure 6: Situs results with 2-layer SMT board (Source: Altium LLC 2016).