PCB design solution vendor CadSoft Computer, a Premier Farnell company, launched Version 7 of its award winning EAGLE PCB software. The update to the popular software brings a modern design environment with increased flexibility, enabling users to develop custom schematics using commercial standard software at a fraction of the cost.
Added features include an enhanced autorouter with significantly less transition points, resulting in more cost-effective and efficiently routed PCBs that require fewer manual interactions. The autorouter also enhances productivity and performance by utilizing multi-core machines, running each routing variant on its own processor simultaneously. Users will benefit by having multiple configurations of the same routed board to choose from, and can use it to select the best outcome for his design.
Version 7 supports larger design teams and more complex designs by enabling large schematic designs to be organized into small functional blocks, which can be assigned to different team members and then easily integrated when complete. This type of hierarchical methodology has significant advantages, giving large organizations a “global view” of the functional blocks of the project to make it easier to locate and change aspects of the schematic or layout.
Enhanced license management features have also been introduced to protect customers’ software investment, while enabling single-user licensors to install the software on up to two devices. For multi-user license owners it will be easier to manage the seats from a license server with better protection of the software.
EAGLE Version 7 also provides a new ULP to export IDF files. A basic model with placeholders for the 3D models of all components can be exported, to be used for preliminary checking. A comprehensive 3D model can be created with Simplified Solution’s “IDF-to-3D” tool which will be available in the CadSoft web shop later this summer.
“CadSoft EAGLE v7 offers greater flexibility than ever before for design teams, with new capabilities that extend the software to more complex design within larger organizations,” said, Thomas Liratsch, Managing Director at CadSoft. “This means we can support more customers through each step of the design process, providing the tools that enable engineers to pull the raw components of any electronics system together, whether they are starting out in the industry or are experienced board-makers.” Its flexible licensing model includes free lifetime support and maintenance, which offers great value for educational institutions, companies and individuals.
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