Orcad Capture User Guide

Orcad® Capture

User’s Guide

Copyright © 1985-2000 Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Trademarks

Allegro, Ambit, BuildGates, Cadence, Cadence logo, Concept, Diva, Dracula, Gate
Ensemble, NC Verilog, OpenBook online documentation library, Orcad, Orcad
Capture, PSpice, SourceLink online customer support, SPECCTRA, Spectre, Vampire,
Verifault-XL, Verilog, Verilog-XL, and Virtuoso are registered trademarks of Cadence
Design Systems, Inc.

Affirma, Assura, Cierto, Envisia, Mercury Plus, Quickturn, Radium, Silicon Ensemble,
and SPECCTRAQuest are trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Alanza is a service mark of Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
All other brand and product names mentioned herein are used for identification

purposes only and are registered trademarks, trademarks, or service marks of their
respective holders.

60-30-611
Second edition 31 May 2000

Cadence PCB Systems Division (PSD) offices

PSD main office (Portland) [phone]
PSD Irvine office [phone]
PSD Japan office 81-45-682-5770

PSD UK office 44-1256-381-400
PSD customer support [phone]
PSD web site www.orcad.com

PSD customer support web page www.orcad.com/technical/technical.asp
PSD customer support email form www.orcad.com/technical/email_support.asp

Cadence PCB Systems Division
13221 SW 68th Parkway, Su ite 200
Portland, OR 97223

Contents

Contents iii
Before you begin xvii

Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

How to use this guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii

Symbols and conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii

Related documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix

Part One Capture basics

Getting started 3Chapter 1

Starting Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Capture session frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

The Capture work environment 5Chapter 2

The project manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Project manager folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Project manager tabs—File and Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Single view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Flat and hierarchical designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Project manager pop-up menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

The schematic page editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

The part editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

The programmer’s editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

The session log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

The toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Displaying or hiding the toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

The tool palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

The schematic page editor tool palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

The part editor tool palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Contents

Displaying or hiding a tool palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

The status bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Left field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Center field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Right field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Displaying or hiding the status bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Selecting and deselecting objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Grouping objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Editing properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Instance and occurrence properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Instance properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Occurrence properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

The Browse spreadsheet editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

The property editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

The property editor window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

The property editor Filter menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Using the property editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

The Package Properties spreadsheet editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Moving and resizing graphic objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Undoing, redoing, and repeating an action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Using the Accessories menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

iv

Starting a project 51Chapter 3

Creating new projects, designs, libraries, and VHDL files . . . . . . . . . 52

Opening existing projects, designs, libraries, and VHDL files . . . . . . 55

Working with files in a project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Saving projects, designs, and libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Closing a project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Archiving a project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Setting up your project 63Chapter 4

Defining your preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Defining colors/print options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Controlling the grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Setting pan and zoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Defining selection options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Setting miscellaneous options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Setting text editor options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Setting up your project template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Setting up fonts for new projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Defining title block information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Contents

Setting the schematic page size for new projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Defining the grid reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Defining the default hierarchy option for new projects . . . . . . . . . 86

Setting up compatibility with Orcad’s Schematic Design Tools (SDT) 87

Changing properties of existing projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Assigning fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Defining hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Using Capture with SDT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Viewing design information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Viewing and connecting to invisible power pins . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Changing properties of existing schematic pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Changing page size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Setting up new grid references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Viewing miscellaneous schematic page properties . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Printing and plotting 95Chapter 5

Printing or plotting schematic pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Printing or plotting parts or packages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Printing the session log and text editor windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Previewing printer or plotter output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Scaling printer or plotter output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Special considerations for plotting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Plotter pen colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Part Two Creating designs

Design structure 105Chapter 6

Flat designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Hierarchical designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Simple hierarchical designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Complex hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Connecting schematic folders and schematic pages . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Hierarchical blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Hierarchical ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Hierarchical pins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Off-page connectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

An example: creating a simple hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Placing, editing, and connecting parts and symbols 115Chapter 7

Placing and editing parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

v

Contents

Placing parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Place Part dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Most Recently Used (MRU) part list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Searching for parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Editing parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Placing and editing power and ground symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Placing power and ground symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Place Power and Place Ground dialog boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Editing power and ground symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Placing and editing no-connect symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Placing no-connect symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Editing no-connect symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Placing and editing hierarchical blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Placing hierarchical blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Place Hierarchical Block dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Editing hierarchical blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Placing and editing hierarchical ports and hierarchical pins . . . . . . . 139

Placing hierarchical ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Place Hierarchical Port dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Placing hierarchical pins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Place Hierarchical Pin dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Editing hierarchical ports and hierarchical pins . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Placing and editing off-page connectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Placing off-page connectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Place Off-Page Connector dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Editing off-page connectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Placing and connecting wires and buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Placing wires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Editing wires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Moving wires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Placing buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Editing buses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Placing bus entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Editing bus entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Ripping a subset of signals off the bus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

vi

Adding and editing graphics and text 157Chapter 8

Drawing tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Drawing lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Drawing rectangles and squares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Drawing circles and ellipses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Contents

Drawing arcs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Drawing polylines and polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Adding fill to an object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Mirroring an object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Rotating an object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Moving an object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Cutting an object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Copying an object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Pasting an object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Deleting a selected object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Placing a bitmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Placing text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

The text bounding box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Deleting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Modifying text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Finding text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Replacing text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Importing text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Exporting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Character formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

About screen fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Using macros 175Chapter 9

Recording a macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Playing a macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Configuring a macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Configure Macro dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Naming a macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Assigning a shortcut key to a macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Sample macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Changing your view of a schematic page 187Chapter 10

Zooming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Zooming to a specified scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Other viewing options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Moving to a new location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Moving to an X, Y location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Go To dialog box, Location tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Jumping to a specific grid reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Go To dialog box, Grid Reference tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Jumping to a marked location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

vii

Contents

Go To dialog box, Bookmark tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Displaying the grid and grid references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Finding parts in a project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Part Three Libraries and parts

About libraries and parts 201Chapter 11

Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

About part instances and part occurrences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

The design cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Primitive and nonprimitive parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Creating and editing parts 209Chapter 12

Parts and packages: homogeneous or heterogeneous . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Creating a new part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Defining a part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

New Part Properties dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Attaching a schematic folder to a part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Adding graphics, text, and IEEE symbols to a part . . . . . . . . . . 217

Placing pins on a part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Place Pin dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Place Pin Array dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

About power and ground pins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Displaying invisible power pins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Editing an existing part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Editing a part in a library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Editing a part on a schematic page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Editing part properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Default part properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Viewing parts in a package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Editing parts in a package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Editing part and package properties in the part editor . . . . . . . . . . 236

Viewing a part’s convert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Part Four Processing your design

About the processing tools 243Chapter 13

Tools overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

viii

Contents

Updating instances and occurrences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Preparing to create a netlist 247Chapter 14

Annotating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Annotate dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Updating properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Update Properties dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Update file format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Checking for design rules violations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Design Rules Check dialog box, Design Rules Check tab . . . . 259

Design Rules Check dialog box, ERC Matrix tab . . . . . . . . . 262

Sample Design Rules Check report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Back annotating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Back Annotate dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Swap file format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Creating a netlist 271Chapter 15

Using the Create Netlist tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Netlist format files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Netname resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Creating reports 275Chapter 16

Creating a bill of materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Bill of Materials dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Include file format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Creating a cross reference report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Cross Reference Parts dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Exporting and importing schematic data 283Chapter 17

Exporting and importing designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Exporting designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Importing designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Exporting and importing properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

Exporting properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

Property file format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Editing a property file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Importing properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Generating a part 293Chapter 18

Using the Generate Part tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

ix

Contents

Generate a new part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Update the pin numbers of an existing part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Using Capture with Orcad Layout 299Chapter 19

Preparing your Capture design for use with Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Creating a netlist for use in Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Loading a new netlist into Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Back annotating board information from Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Forward annotating schematic data to Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Cross probing between Capture and Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

Enabling intertool communication between Capture and Layout . . 308

Cross probing from Capture to Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Cross probing from Layout to Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

General rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Using Capture with PSpice 313Chapter 20

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Specifying simulation model libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Creating a design for PSpice A/D simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Editing simulation models from Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

Adding and defining stimulus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Placing stimulus sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Using the Stimulus Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Setting up and running analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Viewing results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Viewing results as you simulate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Using markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Configuring the display of simulation results . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Creating designs for PSpice simulation and board layout . . . . . . . . . 321

Handling unmodeled pins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Displaying bias point information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Displaying bias point values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Glossary 325
Index 337

x

Figures

Figure 1 Capture’s session frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Figure 2 New project manager window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Figure 3 File tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Figure 4 Hierarchy tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Figure 5 Schematic page editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Figure 6 Part editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Figure 7 Programmer’s editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Figure 8 Session log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Figure 9 Capture’s toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Figure 10 Schematic page editor tool palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Figure 11 Part editor tool palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Figure 12 The status bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Figure 13 Browse spreadsheet editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Figure 14 Property editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Figure 15 Package Properties spreadsheet editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Figure 16 Open project, design, and schematic page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Figure 17 Open library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Figure 18 Open VHDL file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Figure 19 Colors/Print tab of the Preferences dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Figure 20 Grid Display tab of the Preferences dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Figure 21 Pan and Zoom tab of the Preferences dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Figure 22 Select tab of the Preferences dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Figure 23 Miscellaneous tab of the Preferences dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Figure 24 Text Editor tab of the Preferences dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Figure 25 Fonts tab of the Design Template dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Figure 26 Title Block tab of the Design Template dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Figure 27 Title block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Figure 28 Page Size tab of the Design Template dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Figure 29 Grid Reference tab of the Design Template dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Figure 30 Hierarchy tab of the Design Template dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Figure 31 SDT Compatibility tab of the Design Template dialog box . . . . . . . . . 87

Figure 32 Miscellaneous tab of the Design Properties dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Figures

Figure 33 Miscellaneous tab of the Schematic Page Properties dialog box . . . . . 93

Figure 34 An abstract representation of a simple hierarchy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Figure 35 A simple hierarchical design, as seen in the project manager . . . . . . . 108

Figure 36 An abstract representation of a complex hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Figure 37 A complex hierarchical design, as seen in the project manager . . . . . . 109

Figure 38 Schematics before hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Figure 39 Schematics with hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Figure 40 Schematics carrying a net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Figure 41 Connectivity across pages in a schematic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Figure 42 Schematic with power and ground symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Figure 43 Part editor in package view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Figure 44 Part editor in part view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Figure 45 Place Part dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Figure 46 Property editor with filter set to Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Figure 47 Power and ground symbols in CAPSYM.OLB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Figure 48 Place Power dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Figure 49 Hierarchical block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Figure 50 Place Hierarchical Block dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Figure 51 Hierarchical ports in CAPSYM.OLB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Figure 52 Place Hierarchical Port dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Figure 53 Place Hierarchical Pin dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Figure 54 Off-page connectors in CAPSYM.OLB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Figure 55 Place Off-Page Connector dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Figure 56 Connectivity change warning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Figure 57 Schematic page editor tool palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Figure 58 Part editor tool palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Figure 59 Configure Macro dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Figure 60 Location tab of the Go To dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Figure 61 Grid Reference tab of the Go To dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Figure 62 Bookmark tab of the Go To dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Figure 63 Replace Cache dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Figure 64 New Part Properties dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Figure 65 Place Pin dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Figure 66 Place Pin Array dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Figure 67 User Properties dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Figure 68 Part editor in Package View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Figure 69 Edit Part Properties dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Figure 70 Before annotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Figure 71 After annotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Figure 72 Annotate dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Figure 73 Update Properties dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Figure 74 Design Rules Check tab of the Design Rules Check dialog box . . . . . . 259

xii

Figures

Figure 75 ERC tab of the Design Rules Check dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Figure 76 Back Annotate dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Figure 77 Create Netlist dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Figure 78 Bill of Materials dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Figure 79 Cross Reference Parts dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Figure 80 Export Design dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Figure 81 Import Design dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Figure 82 Export Properties dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Figure 83 Import Properties dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Figure 84 Generate Part dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Figure 85 Generate Part dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

xiii

Figures

xiv

Tables

Table 1 Tools on the Capture toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Table 2 Tools on the schematic page editor tool palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Table 3 Tools on the part editor tool palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Table 4 Capture’s macro subroutines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Table 5 Valid shortcut keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Table 6 Pin shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Table 7 Pin types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Table 8 Capture tools overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Table 9 Updating instances or occurrences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Table 10 Netlist format file types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Table 11 Action on part or pin properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Table 12 Cross probing from Capture to Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Table 13 Cross probing from Layout to Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

Tables May 22, 2000

xvi

Before you begin

Welcome

Orcad family products offer a total solution for your core
design tasks: schematic- and VHDL-based design entry;
FPGA and CPLD design synthesis; digital, analog, and
mixed-signal simulation; and printed ci rcuit board layout.
What’s more, Orcad family products are a suite of
applications built around an engineer's design flow—not
just a collection of independently developed point tools.
Orcad Capture is just one element in our total solution
design flow.

Capture is a versatile design entry product you can use to
create schematics for analog or mixed signal designs,
printed circuit board layout designs, and programmable
logic designs. First, create your flat or hierarchical design
in the schematic page editor, then use C apture’s tools to
quickly annotate it and prepare it for the next stage of
development.

Before you begin

How to use this guide

This guide is designed so you can quickly find the
information you need to use Insert Product Name. To help
you learn and use Insert Product Name efficiently, this
manual is separated into the following sections:

• Part 1, Capture basics, includes how to get started

with Capture; what you need to know about the
Capture windows, editors, session log, the toolbar and
tool palettes, and general Capture concepts; how to
start and set up a project; and printing and plotting.

• Part 2, Creating designs, discusses design structure;

placing, editing, and connecting parts and symbols;
adding and editing graphics and text; using macros,
and changing your schematic page view.

• Part 3, Libraries and parts, tells you about libraries and

parts, and how to create and edit parts.

• Part 4, Processing your design, provides an overview

of the processing tools; creating a netlist and reports;
exporting and importing schematic data; gene rating a
part; and using Capture with Orcad Layout and
PSpice.

Symbols and conventions

Our printed documentation uses a few special symbols
and conventions.

Notation Examples Description

C+r Press C+r. Means to hold down the C key while

pressing r.

A, f, o From the File menu, choose Open (A, f,

o).

xviii

Means that you have two options. You
can use the mouse to choose the Open
command from the File me nu, or you
can press each of the keys in
parentheses in order: first A, then f,
then o.

How to use this guide

Monospace font

UPPERCASE In Capture, open CLIPPERA.DSN. Path and filenames are shown in

Italics In Capture, save design_name.DSN. Information that you are to provide is

In the Part Name text box, type PARAM. Text that you type is shown in

monospace font. In the example, you
type the characters P, A, R, A, and
M.

uppercase. In the example, you open
the design file named CLIPPERA.DSN.

shown in italics. In the example, you
save the design with a name of your
choice, but it must have an extension of
.DSN.

Related documentation

In addition to this guide, you can find technical product
information in the online help, the online interactive
tutorial, online books, and our technical web site, as well
as in other books. The table below describes the types of
technical documentation provided with Insert Product
Name.

This documentation component . . . Provides this . . .

This guide—

Orcad Capture User’s Guide

A comprehensive guide for understanding and using the
features available in Insert Product Name.

xix

Before you begin

This documentation component . . . Provides this . . .

Online help Comprehensive information for understanding and using

the features available in Insert Product Name.
You can access help from the Help menu in Insert Product

Name by choosing the Help button in a dialog box, or by
pressing 1. Topics include:

• Explanations and instructions for common tasks.

• Descriptions of menu com mands, dialog b oxes, tools on

the toolbar and tool palettes, and the status bar.

• Error messages and glossary terms.

• Reference information.

• Product support information.

You can get context-sensitive help for a error message by
placing your cursor in the error mess age lin e in t he s essi on
log and pressing 1.

Online interactive tutorial A series of self-paced interactive lessons. You can practice

what you’ve learned by going through the tutorial’s
specially designed exercises that interact directly with
Insert Product Name. You can start the tutorial by choosing
Learning Insert Product Name from the Help menu.

Online Orcad Capture User’s Guide An online, searchable version of this gu ide, a vailabl e when

choosing Online Manuals from the Orcad family program
group (on the Start menu).

Online Insert Product Name quick reference Concise descriptions of the comma nds, shortc uts, and tool s

available in Insert Pr oduct N ame, av ailab le when choosin g
Online Manuals from the Orcad family program group (on
the Start menu).

xx

This documentation component . . . Provides this . . .

Orcad family customer support at
www.orcad.com/technical/technical.asp

An Internet-based support service available to customers
with current support options. A few of the technical
solutions within the customer support area are:

• The Knowledge Base, which is a searchable database

containing thousands of articles on topics ranging from
schematic design entry and VHDL-b ased PLD design to
PCB layout methodologies. It also contains answers to
frequently asked questions.

• The Knowledge Exchange, which enables you to share

information and ideas with other users and with our
technical experts in a real-time online forum. You can
submit issues or questions for open discussion, search
the Knowledge Exchange for information, or send email
to another participant for one-on-one communication. A
list of new postings will appear each time you visit the
Knowledge Exchange, providing yo u with a quick
update of what’s been discussed since your last visit.

• The Technical Library, which contains online customer

support infor m ation that you can search through by
category or product. You can find product manuals,
product literature, technical note s, ar tic les , samp les,
books, and other technical information. Additionally,
technical informatio n can be obtained through
SourceLink, which is an online customer support
information service for users of Cadence software other
than Capture, Component Information System (CIS),
Express, Layout, or PSpice.

• The Support Connection, which allows y ou to choose to

either view and update exi sting incidents, o r create new
incidents. The information is de livered directly to us via
our internal database. This service is only available to
customers with current maintenance or Extended
Support Options (ESOs) in the United States and
Canada.

• The Live Connection, which enables you to open access

to your computer to a Customer Support person, who
can then view your actions on your computer monitor
as you demonstrate the problem you’re having. Live
Connection’s two-way transmission can also let you
view the actions on the Customer Support person’s
computer monitor, as he or she demonstrates a method
or procedure to help you solve your problem. To
participate in Live Connection, you need to contact a
Customer Support person, in order to obtain a support
number to grant y ou acce ss to the Li ve Co nnec tion site ,
and to set up a time to “meet online” using Live
Connection.

How to use this guide

xxi

Before you begin

xxii

Part One

Capture basics

Chapter 1, Getting started, describes how to start Capture.
Chapter 2,

Capture windows, the toolbar and tool palettes, and
general Capture concepts such as selecting and editing
objects, and undoing and repeating actions.

Chapter 3,

designs that Capture supports: flat, simple hierarchical,
and complex hierarchical. It introduces the electrical
objects used to create these types of designs, and provides
an example of how to create a simple hierarchy.

Chapter 4,

design and navigate the schematics and schematic pages
in a design, or a portion of a design, such as an individual
schematic page.

Chapter 5,

plot schematic pages, parts, packages, the session log, or
text, and how to scale and preview printer or plotter
output.

The Capture work environment, orients y ou to

Starting a project, descri bes the different types of

Setting up your project, shows how to open a

Printing and plotting, explains how to print or

Getting started

This chapter describes how to start Orcad Capture and
provides an overview of the Capture session frame.

1

Starting Capture

The Orcad Family installation process offers a default
location for Capture and adds “Orcad Family Release” to
the Programs menu (available from the Start button).

To start Capture

1 From the Start menu, point to Programs and choose

Orcad Family Release.

2 From the Orcad Family Release menu item, choose

Capture.

Chapter 1 Getting started

The Capture session frame

Once you start Capture, you see the Capture session frame.
You do all your schematic design and processing within
this window.

Figure 1 Capture’s session frame

The minimized Session Log icon in the lower left portion
of the Capture session frame is the sessi on log. The session
log provides information about everything you have done
in the current Capture session. Detailed information about
this window—and the other windows in Capture—is
given in Chapter 2,

In Capture, each design that you open is in a separate
project manager window. If you need to work
simultaneously with several designs, you can open them
all, and each will have its own project manager window.

Depending on which type of window you have active (an
active window is one whose title bar is highlighted),
certain buttons on the toolbar and certain items on the
menus may be unavailable, since you perform tasks and
use tools based upon the type of window that is active.
Also, the menus and menu choices vary, depending on
which type of window is active . The avail able me nus and
menu choices also vary depending upon the type of
project.

The Capture work environment.

4

The Capture work environment

This chapter describes the things you need to know to find
your way around in Capture. It shows the windows you’ll
see in Capture: the project manager, the schematic page
editor, the part editor, the text editor, and the session log.
It also introduces you to the toolbar, tool palettes, and
general Capture concepts such as selecting and editing
objects, editing properties, and undoing and repeating
actions.

2

Chapter 2 The Capture work environment

Figure 2 New project manager window

The project manager

You use the project manager to collect and organize all the
resources you need for your project. These resources
include schematic folders, schematic pages, part libraries,
parts, VHDL files, and output reports such as bills of
materials and netlists. Figure 2 shows a new project
manager window.

A project doesn’t actually contain all the resources. It
merely “points to” the various files that the project uses.
For this reason, be sure you don’t move or delete any f iles
referenced by a project. If you do, the project won’t be able
to find them.

The project file is saved with an .OPJ file extension. It is an
ASCII file, and can be viewed in any text editor.

Project manager folders

For information a bout hierarch ical designs ,
see Chapter 6,

6

Design structure.

The project manager provides a graphical display of a
project’s resources by grouping them into appropriate
folders, as described below.

• Shown underneath the Design Resources folder is the

design folder with the design’s schematic folders and
schematic pages, and a Design Cache folder that
shows all the parts used on the schematic pages.
Capture automatically adds any schematic folders or
schematic pages that you create to the design folder.
(In Figure 2, the design folder is named
DESIGN3.DSN.) You can add other files or
information using the Project command on the Edit
menu. For example, you can add an existing VHDL
file to the design folder and later attach the models
within that VHDL file to hierarchical blocks on a
schematic page.

• The Library folder (in the Design Resources folder)

T

shows the schematic part library files you’ve add ed to
the project using the Project command on the Edit
menu.

• The Outputs folder shows the output of Capture’s

processing tools. Generally, these files include bill of
materials reports and technology-specific netlists.
Capture adds files to this folder when each is created.

The project manager

Each project may have only one design, but may have
multiple libraries. The design may consist of any number
of schematics or VHDL models, but it must have a single
root module. The root module is defined as the top level of
the design. That is, all other modules in the design are
referenced within the root module.

Within the project manager, you can expand or collapse
the structure you see by double-clicking on a folder, or by
clicking on the plus sign or minus sign to the left of a
folder. A plus sign indicates that the folder has contents
that are not currently visible; a minus sign indicates that
the folder is open and its c ontents are vis ible, liste d below
the folder. It appears as a schematic f older with a slash on
it in a design file, or as a page in a VHDL file.

Each project you open has its own project manager
window. You can move or copy folders or files between
projects by dragging them from one project manager
window to another (as well as to and from Windows
Explorer). To copy rather than move items, press and hold

C key while you drag them. If you close a project

the
manager window, you close the project.

ip The root module for a design has a

backslash in its folder icon, as shown in
Figure2 on page 2-6.

Note If a schematic page is open, you

cannot drag its icon to a different location.

In the project manager’s File tab, double-clicking on a
schematic folder expands it and displays icons for each
schematic page within the schematic folder. Then, if you
double-click on a schematic page icon, the schematic page
opens in a schematic page editor. Or, if the page is already
open, its window becomes active.

7

Chapter 2 The Capture work environment

A design can consist of a single schematic page within a
single schematic folder, or a number of schematic pages
within a number of schematic fo lders. A s chemati c folder
contains schematic pages in a relationship similar to that
of a directory and the files it contains. Files are contained
in a directory; schematic pages are contained in a
schematic folder.

Note The project manager is also used to

manage libraries and the parts they
contain. This is covered in detail in
Chapter11, About libraries and parts.

A schematic page provides a graphical description of the
electrical connectivity of a design. It is made up of parts,
wires, and other electrical symbols. A schematic page may
also contain borders, title blocks, text, and graphics.

Capture acts on any schematic folders or schematic pages
you have selected within an active project manager
window. For example, the Find and Browse commands on
the project manager’s Edit menu, the Print command on
the project manager’s File menu, and the various tools on
the Tools menu only apply to the selected schematic folder
or page.

8