Re: Has anyone produced a board using Kicad?


fpga_toys@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I still use an older version of PCB (050318) which is fast.

The HID project is done, so you might be interested in trying the
latest snapshot (20060422). You can configure it for either Gtk or
Lesstif (or openmotif, depending on what you have). The lesstif hid
is very streamlined, and a number of our regulars claim it's much
faster and easier to use than what they were used to.

The Gtk hid looks much like what you're used to.

FYI: we've gotten the Gtk hid to build on windows, and the lesstif hid
builds on Mac OS/X (and solaris, hp/ux, aix, irix, etc).

And I do hand route almost everything, as it's autorouter isn't up
to a high end ($30K) router either.

I've commented that we need a volunteer to replace the gridless router
with a topological router. Gridless just can't keep up with today's
dense layouts. I'm sure the topological router won't be up to
everything either, but it should do a lot better than gridless.

My (hopefully) next "big" project is a global trace "puller" that lets
you be sloppy with your layout, and have PCB clean things up for you
(straight runs, graceful curves, minimum trace length). We'll see if
I ever finish (or even start) it ;-)

I wish the gEDA integration was as good as Kicad at times,

It's a common request, and we're making *some* progress with it. Dan
just offered his first pass at a "mode menu" for gschem, which lets
you do pcb-specific things right from the gschem menu. PCB also has a
listener port for remote control. He's working on tying things
together in useful ways (like cross-selecting).

I've turned several high density boards with PCB without problem
that are double sided smt, small form factor (PC104+) with BGA560
FPGA, multiple TSOP2 SDRAMs, EEPROMs, Compact Flash, and speciality
analog audio, ISA/PCI -- several thousand connections in the 3.75" x
3.5" form factor.

Pretty pictures? (and I'm always on the lookout for .pcb files for my
testing, if you have some tricky ones you can send me).

I've also done several 16" x 22" dense double sided 6-8 layer smt
layouts with PCB that have a couple hundred thousand connections,

Wow.

The lesstif hid of PCB allows boards up to about a quarter mile per
side, in case you need to go even bigger :)
.