Karl J. Bates wrote:

> My experience with Mentor has mostly been with quick turn (2 weeks or less)
> PCB's.   25 % of these PCB's had analog and digital mixes, the rest were
> Digital.  I have done a few RF designs, none on Mentor.  It seems like every
> design that I have done with Mentor, I needed to make compromises in my design
> integrity to get the PCB out on time.  When I was using Cadence I could quickly
> make modifications, slight trace and via moves and areafill cuts without
> worrying about losing the trace entirely.   I think this is because Mentor
> software is Guide (ratsnest) based.   The Cadence software is more forgiving
> in interactive layout, and designs can be done much quicker (design reuse
> is much easier also).   I spend 85% of my time in layout and that's where
> Cadence has it's strength.   Mentor claims to have all these great add-ons
> that will make your life just wonderful.  My experience is that you need
> 5 programmers for every layout guy to customize the software (Mentor) just
> to make it work.   I buy a software package so I won't have to program and
> customize it.
>
> Just my 3 cents worth..
>
> Karl

Karl;

I thought you worked at Westell!

I have used Mentor staight out of the box, HIGHLY customized, and usually somewhere
in between.
The strength of Mentor is the ability to customize it to fit your company's needs.
Where things get complicated is when a company hires 23 programmers to make Mentor
look and feel like the CAD system they just dumped, or they customize every step in the
process. Then you wind up with all of these menus, and nobody remembers what half of
them are supposed to do.

Straight out of the box is much easier.

Regards;
Tom G.


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Tom Garman                  Telephone   614 860 6064
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