CAD Software Pricing Wars Heat Up

Another price/performance battle is heating up in PCB design software, and this time Altium could feel the burn.

Altium has experienced decent growth over the past few years, reaching about $75 million in annual sales. That’s not a huge sum compared to the Big Three of Mentor Graphics, Cadence and Zuken (subsequently referred to as MCZ), but it no doubt is getting the attention of the big boys, given the fairly modest pace of PCB design layout seat growth.

After dropping pricing on its signature Altium Designer tool from $14,000 to about $5,500 in 2008, Altium then raised them more than 30% a year ago this month, with some reports indicating even larger spikes, plus support.

Mentor today fired a big shot across the bow, pricing its newly configured shrink-wrap Pads suite at an entry level  price of $5,000, including a year of support. A mid-range version is priced at $10,000, in line with Designer once support is factored in.

Mentor made its move to target so-called independent users, those who may work for corporations but have the latitude to go outside the enterprise CAD system for their tools. That sector is characterized by engineering generalists who look for lower seat costs and aren’t driven by the particular tool. Will Altium counter move, or will it take a chance that it can wait out its deeper-pocketed competitor, hoping that Mentor lacks the patience to withstand the margin pain?

No matter how this plays out, a company can only grow so large in the shrink-wrap space. Enterprise is where the big bucks come from, and that space is dominated by MCZ. And that next move is Altium’s.

 

 

 

More Thoughts on Via Near Pad

The other day, I wrote about vias near pads. The post got a couple of interesting comments.

In one of the comments, Mitch said, “When I was learning PCB design in the 1980s, I was taught by a mentor that understood assembly very well.” I think that highlights a big component of the problem. I suspect that a lot of folks doing layout today were not taught by anyone but themselves.

CAD packages may have instruction manuals and tutorials, but learning how to use a software package is a lot different than learning how to do the actual process well. It’s possible to be very proficient at using a word processor, but still not know how to write well.

It’s not an uncommon scenario these days, especially after the economic suckiness of last year, to come in to work expecting to hand off a schematic to the layout engineer only to find that “tag you’re it.”

Howard, in another comment, suggested that in his experience, filling and plating over vias in pads typically only adds about 8% to the PCB cost. In smaller prototype quantities, it may be a little more then that, but what’s the cost of a failed assembly? If you have the room to move the vias off the pads, the only cost may be in layout time. If space is critical or if there are signal/noise/thermal issues that force the vias to be in the pads, then you’ll just have to spend the extra to fill and plate.

If you do find yourself suddenly tasked with layout and you’ve never done one before, find a mentor (or maybe a Minotaur), read up online, call up a manufacturing person, study the Screaming Circuits blog. What ever you do, figure out all these little traps like vias in pad, components library foot print issues, spacing issues, thermal issues, etc. Then dive into the layout and learn from each one. Drink some tea too. It can relax you. Just try to stay away from Oreos and ice cream late at night.

Duane Benson
What’s the deal with 1729?

http://blog.screamingcircuits.com/