Yea, well imagine if you had a router, you would have buried all of the competition. Read into that Protel. Bill check out ConnectEDA's Electra's router.
Mike (smaller CID) -----Original Message----- From: Brooks,Bill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 1:23 PM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel TOP GUN Thanks for the kind words Mike, however I must clear up the record... My foray into the TOP GUN competition did not result in my getting the coveted flight jacket, but I did use the tool (99SE) successfully in competition. It was an honor in itself to get the invitation to compete, they do not choose contestants lightly, all were seasoned veterans of the PCB industry. The contest involved a multilayer, mixed signal, matched impedance differential pair, board layout of a Video Processor circuit on a PCI card and we had 16 hours to complete it. (The board design changes each year so don't think you can study up on video processors and get an edge....) Of the nine participants only 2 are chosen to receive the jackets. Both winners were using the Veribest tool. I was the only Protel user. (Obviously the Protel Router didn't help me much...) I had to hand route many of the lines... That would explain why I didn't place higher or actually win because it slowed me down. Mentor bought Veribest very shortly after that competition and Mentor did not participate in the CAD tool benchmark contest that year. Cadence won that year. It was March of 2000. The 2 hall of fame inductees were Rick Dachauer, RockSolid Design, Mountain View, CA and Wayne Pulliam, AMD, Round Rock, TX... Both Mentor users now. But I must say I was in there with some very experienced designers that all tried very hard to win the competiton. It seems the Veribest router made all the difference in this case. I believe that the cad tools represented there in the TOP GUN contest were Protel, ORCAD, PCAD, PADS, and Veribest. By the way, Mentor now owns PADS too... it's now their low end tool. Your assessment of the money that's gets thrown at the problem is pretty accurate however. They do have deep pockets, and their customers pay up to the tune of about 40K a seat and very high maintenance and training costs. I do not know if any other designer besides myself has attempted the TOP GUN competition with Protel again. I can tell you though, in my opinion, the Situs router would really need to improve to be able to compete with the other tools that are available now. The concept of the 'TOP GUN' is more targeted towards service bureau abilities. FAST, ACCURATE, and ON TIME. This is the goal of the TOP GUN and if you hope to have a chance at getting the flight jacket, you need to be 'FLYING' a very fast, capable tool. I was greatly honored to compete against the guys that put it all on the line there and I was told I have an open invitation to come back and compete again at any time which I may do again if this PCB design program ever matures. In the mean time, it gets my work done and for that, I cannot complain. All the best, Bill Brooks PCB Design Engineer , C.I.D., C.I.I. Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 -----Original Message----- From: Mike Reagan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 7:51 AM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel TOP GUN has anyone ever made PCD magazine Top Gun using Protel (anything) that should tell you allot since the people that compete for this are all experienced designers, the only difference really is the tool. you get what you pay for, when buying CAD you should spend what you can afford, there is no free lunch, if there was the more expensive ones could not exist TA TA TA, wrong assumption Mr Brooks who frequents this forum has slain the Mentor TOP GUNS. Has it ever occurred to you that Cadence and Mentor simply throw more money and resources at this contest. Thus stackiing the deck with Mentor users. You havent seen a PADs user compete or win in the past few years.....why because PADS went belly up. Mike Reagan * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
