The thing about Eagle is that i have just done the attached board in Eagle, if i was asked to do this in any of the high end pcb layout packages...i would be clueless, ..thus the following needs to be said about PCB layout....
Sorry this speaks of the UK a lot , but i am sure the same applies and is relevant to other countries, just that i cant speak for them...
This is an area where electronics engineering companies can massively benefit from pooling knowledge together. (specially UK ones because UK engineers do not share knowledge readily) Laying out a basic SMPS PCB in the “Eagle Pro” PCB Layout software package is very very simple indeed. Laying out the same PCB in a more “High end” package would be much more difficult. This shouldn’t be the case and needn’t be so. Unfortunately , the “high-end” PCB Layout packages are sometimes needed because Eagle doesn’t do eg multiple differential pair bus routing, and doesn’t do track-pushing etc.
However, the Eagle PCB Layout package can do far far more than its given credit for. It’s a great shame that it isn’t more often used due to the time and money it could save. Eagle is not what would be termed a “high-end” PCB Layout software package.
The “high-end” PCB layout packages are far harder to learn than they need to be. This impacts badly on electronics engineering companies (specially UK ones because UK engineers do not share knowledge readily)
In relation to this, what I am now going to say will not go down well in many quarters, but must be said because the UK is now disappearing into the Third World…And many other countries are suffering the same
The high-end PCB Layout packages are far harder than they need to be, this dramatically increases operational costs of UK engineering companies. The high-end PCB Layout packages are made difficult to use because…….
1…The PCB Layout package vendors get payed significant money for tuition and tutorial sessions, so there is little incentive to write informative and useful training video’s etc
2…PCB Layout engineers who have managed to master a high-end PCB Layout Package are not keen to teach others their skills, because it would mean “teaching someone else to do their job”.
3… PCB Layout package vendors can actually benefit from users getting stuck and needing to contact them for advice…..because when the users get in touch, the PCB Layout package vendor can then check that the user has purchased a licence (and not a bootlegged one). The PCB Layout package vendor can also try and sell them a latest, updated software version.
4…Applications engineers who work for PCB Layout package vendors often do “moonlighting” work as PCB Layout engineers, and so there is little motivation for them to produce effective tutorial materials for the PCB Layout software package. (…because it would mean producing more PCB layout staff and thus mean more competition for work in the arena of PCB layout). Such Applications engineers often eventually leave employment with the PCB Layout software company and set themselves up as a Consultant PCB Layout Engineer. Wages of £50 per hour or more are not uncommon for PCB Layout staff.
Effective Tutorials:
Producing effective tutorials for the high-end PCB layout packages would be a good start. As discussed, the fact that the Eagle PCB layout package is so incredibly simple shows that operating PCB layout packages does not have to be hard. Eagle is literally as simple as a PCB.
Examples of the difficulty of “High-End” PCB Layout packages:-
a)……PCB Layout Engineer could not lay a track at a non-standard angle:
One day I was sitting beside a PCB Layout engineer who was working for a PCB layout consultancy. He was earning £50 per hour. He was using a ‘high-end’ PCB Layout software package. I was assisting him and advising him on laying out an SMPS circuit. He was actually ‘operating’ the PCB Layout software package. At one point, I asked him to route a particular track closer to the board’s perimeter. This meant him needing to lay this track at an angle which was other than the usual 90 degrees or 45 degree angle.
…However, he was unable to work out how to do this. A good 20 minutes passed by with him simply not able to do what should have been a simple task. This says it all about these high-end PCB Layout packages. They are far harder than they need to be and even highly experienced users get very stuck on simple features. This is in no way an inditement on the particular PCB Layout consultant, but it is a mark of how there is a lack of decent quality tutorial material available for these High-end PCB Layout software packages. In this case the PCB Layout consultant said he would find out how to do the task later on, but when I reviewed the board later, I could see that he had still not managed to do this simple task.
This happens all over the UK and it means that operational costs of UK electronics companies are more than they need to be. It is such a shame that a task that could easily be made much more simple is often so difficult.
b)…..Another day I was advising a different PCB Layout Consultant on how to lay out a small LED driver PCB in a high-end PCB Layout software package. This consultant had made his living out of PCB layout, and had payed off his mortgage on his large house with his ample earnings.
At one stage this PCB Layout consultant tried to make a footprint for a small transistor (SiS892). He was simply unable to do this simple task. The vagueries of the high-end PCB Layout software package made this simple job too hard for him. After half an hour of unsuccessfully trying to do this task, he gave up and told me he would do it later. When the gerber files were eventually sent by him to the PCB manufacturer, we got a call from the PCB manufacturer, because the manufacturer recognised that the transistor footprint had not been done properly. (it actually had solder resist all over the pad).
Again, this demonstrates how even highly experienced PCB Layout consultants often struggle with the use of high-end PCB Layout packages. They struggle to do simple tasks in these high-end PCB layout packages. This happening all over the UK represents a lot of extra expense in the operation of the UK electronics companies.
This is a shame because making good tutorial material for these packages could alleviate this issue. As you would guess, laying out a simple LED driver PCB is not rocket science.