Teamcenter Integration for Cadence Allegro Products

The Teamcenter integration for Cadence Allegro PCB Design enables users to capture PCB design data (schematic, physical layout, BOM, fabrication, assembly and visualization data) created under Allegro and store/manage this informationwithin Teamcenter – Siemens Digital Industries Software’s digital PLM backbone. Teamcenter’s Allegro integration provides a comprehensive solution for the entire electronics products lifecycle that extends from initial inception through creation, analysis, manufacturing, service and end-of-life disposition.

Teamcenter’s Allegro integration enables users to access, manage and archive PCB design data in a single secure location. The integration lets users open and save native design files, access approved components, populate electrical component BOMs and share fabrication and assembly data – as well as create and manage derived files directly in Teamcenter.

Teamcenter menus, embedded in the Allegro user interface, allow the user to automatically login into Teamcenter and open, save, check-in and check-out design data. The integration assures design teams their ECAD data is accurately captured and consistently managed in the Teamcenter environment so it can be kept in-sync with other product definition data.

On an enterprise level, the integration allows widely dispersed PCB design teams to manage released design data, collaborate and execute design changes across the entire product lifecycle, thereby minimizing change-related rework.

To facilitate the flow of accurate design data across multiple domains, the Teamcenter integration enables collaborative design by leveraging IDF and IDX (EDMD) design data exchange formats. The formats enable the sharing of information relating to board outlines, component placements, keep-out areas and other placement restrictions. Managed in Teamcenter the IDX format supports the ability to pass incremental design data, as well as allow both the ECAD and MCAD designers to accept or reject changes, and incorporate change notes or comments into the information being shared.

Electrical engineers can pass this information as 2.5D/3D elements to mechanical engineers to simulate and analyze various conditions, including interferences, thermal, vibration, shock, dust and humidity. Sharing data for this type of cross-domain analysis helps improve quality and increase product reliability.

To quickly diagnose and understand potential manufacturing errors, users can employ optional design-for-assembly analysis tools and powerful ECAD viewer technology. These capabilities allow users to investigate and identify potential issues early in the design process, thereby eliminating unnecessary scrap and rework.

The ECAD viewer’s graphical navigation features enable design teams and suppliers to interactively view, cross-probe and annotate schematic and PCB layout data without the use of an expensive authoring tool. Many frequently used annotations are automatically translated and displayed using the language specified by the user’s system.

Teamcenter’s Allegro integration enables users to optionally leverage Teamcenter’s powerful requirements management capabilities. PCB hardware and software functions can be associated with specific design requirements, providing complete requirements traceability throughout the entire PCB lifecycle.