Re: Who's using autorouters for their designs?

From: Leon Heller (leon_heller_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 10/22/04 

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:06:32 +0100

"Henk Boonsma" <hboonsma@teranet.news> wrote in message
news:1098467030.f3RmPPwZCxMY/k7EROjkLg@teranews...
> I'm wondering how many people are using autorouters for their board
> layouts
> and in what percentage (i.e. what percentage is being routed by the
> autorouter)? I've had some bad experience using autorouters and hardly use
> them anymore. OTOH, Electra claims that autorouters do a very decent job
> with digital circuits and that even though the layout doesn't look as
> 'artistic' as one done by a human, they are ussually better.
>
> When I look at board layouts on most digital products (e.g. motherboards)
> it
> seems to me that they've been done manually (i.e. most signal busses are
> perfectly routed next to each other, something an autorouter won't
> ussually
> do).
>
> What do you guys think?

There are lots of factors involved. Someone I was talking to about this who
designs high-spec. boards for many large UK companies told me that they
wouldn't accept them if they had been autorouted. Motherboards are made in
such vast quantities that the additional costs for manual routing are
insignificant. Although I have Electra (supplied with the PCB package I use)
I very rarely use it, although it does work better than any other autorouter
I've tried.

Leon