Altium is killing off perpetual AD

[CadenceAE]

In response to Smokey's question "What is the industry acceptable lateral move away from Altium for a pro business user?

OrCADX is a reasonable alternative.  Even prior to the Renesas acquisition OrCAD was one of Altium's biggest competitors in small, medium, and even enterprise accounts.   

If you haven't looked at OrCADX please do so(look on youtube).  The OrCADX layout editor has an entirely new UX that is very easy to learn and use while offering a robust set of capability and stability.    OrCADX Capture is an industry standard, numerous reference designs,  direct integrations with online library providers like SnapMagic, and also very stable.   

You can import your Altium designs into OrCADX.

Disclaimer. I work for Cadence. I typically avoid directly promoting on this blog because I try to respect the fact that this blog is not the place for advertising.  I hope this response, in this case, is acceptable because the topic is talking about alternatives to Altium for businesses and OrCAD is a very realistic answer and may help the designers and companies that need it. 

[pointhi]

What do we miss in KiCad?
Output file management (outjobs) - really miss this
Full padstacks - we work around it, and we still have some permanent licenses for Altium if we really need
Full IPC-2581 for 3D FEM software - KiCad only has partial support ATM
A fair number of bugs get introduced with each major update (roughly annually)

@JohnG If you want "Full IPC-2581 for 3D FEM software" I would suggest you to get in touch with https://www.kipro-pcb.com/ and ask for a quote. I doubt it will be that expensive to implement as most of the stuff is already there. Also see: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/16665

[tszaboo]

I asked my sales rep a few questions since the language in the email was kind of vague on specifics.  Here's their response:

1. You will continue to have ownership of the perpetual license.  That will not change.  You own the license outright and it will be available for basic design functionality.  All of the subscription features will now live with the term based license + subscription.  Your perpetual license will live in the account alongside the term based license.
2. If you decide to make the conversion now and do not renew next year, you'll lose the term based license and the price guarantee.  The perpetual license will still be on the account, just frozen with the last available update released for AD24.
3. You are not obligated to renew.  If you choose not to renew and then need to access the latest and greatest available with Altium, you'll then be subject to current list prices of a term based license.
4. Yes, the perpetual license is yours.  It just won't have the subscription features : updates to AD24+, Altium 365, library component management, library parts updates, support, and bug fixes.
5. Yes, you can use both licenses alongside each other.  Since the perpetual license will be frozen with previous updates, it might not be as fast as the term based license but you will still be able to use both at the same time.

I was concerned about being locked into paying all 3 years in order to keep the perpetual license, but that's not the case.

I just confirmed most of this on the phone. I don't know if a lapsed perpetual doesn't have access to the online library, didn't ask.
When the subscription elapses, we will get a new quote to extend it. We cannot buy new licenses. So this would be an issue when onboarding new engineers or extending the team. Honestly right now I feel like this is going to be an issue for someone in the future. Most likely me  .

Having term based license is good for consultants, where you bill your client for it. For companies employing engineers long term... They also totally price themselves out of a lot of markets.

[ajawamnet]

OrcadX does indeed have a new GUI, but it still operates like Allegro.   

But Looks alone aren't enough.

They got closer to a much easier interface but there's a lot of things missing that Altium has.  One is dimming when highlighting nets.  Another is Padstacks... good lord.  I've hated them since the first Allegro version years ago.  A zillion individual files with cryptic names for pads and vias. 

They still lack a lot of things that Altium has that makes designing much easier. More comprehensive - esp. List panels.

They still lack a very customizable interface as has Altium. Custom tool bars, etc...  The scripting is better, everything about it blows ORCAD out of the water. 

Another thing is directives.  Constraint managers suck.  And Altium - in a move to try and woo Cadence users to Altium - now has a Constraint manager.

I'll tell you.  All my clients that use Cadence are so jealous of directives?  Why you ask?

See these vids I made:

two pin nets


reuse


even KiCAD went the directive method - tho primitive as compared to Altium, where you can have a directive drill down into individual rules and push those to the PCB.

Another thing about Altium?  The official forum. People like Dennis, Brett, Rhys, Thomas, Tim, Olivier, Mark,  Walter, Eric, Michael, Shawn, James, Ryan...   so many I can't even recall.

These are guys that will respond instantly, 24/7, and actually test your issues, write some amazing scripts, and hold Altium's feet to the fire when it does prove to be a bug. 

Cadence forum pales in comparison.

I have to say EMA and Cadence still provide good direct support to the end user  - -  BUT when I mentioned to EMA about the fact that the Padstack Preview was broken in 16.6/17.2 this is what I got:

"The new status is set to Inactive, which means that no action is planned. Each CCR is carefully considered, evaluated, and prioritized along with other fixes, planned feature additions, and enhancement requests, for possible inclusion in upcoming product updates and releases."

then after we all complained:

"Thanks for the update. Have a nice week and happy Christmas.

With this, I shall be closing this case.
You might receive a customer survey form for this Case. If you do, please share your feedback. Your feedback will help us improve our support effectiveness and product quality."

Then even later after EMA-EDA's tech complained:  " R&D will review this and accept these issues and also they will discuss with marketing team consider an priority basis."

At least Altium will tell you there's a ticket on it ... even if it is a "Check's in the mail" or some other crude version of that saying....


I was an ORCAD DOS user (SDT-386) back in the day.  When the port to Windows came about, it had some serious issue with corrupted design cache's  causing total lockout of a design.  That was around 1994, and when I switched to Protel. Funny thing was, the key strokes in Protel were very similar to those in the DOS SDT suite.  So it was much easier to migrate to than ORCAD for Windows.

Oh god - and then the Masstech rebranding. Layout Plus.  What a nightmare.  That was just awful.  I sent a board out in 1995 and the fab sent a note saying that all the via drills were off as compared to the gerbers. 

When I called ORCAD support, the Masstech guy complained about it more than I did. 

I still maintain my Orcad pro seat since I have clients that use it.  One uses it because they are mil, were gonna buy Altium and had a stop buy when Altium tried phoning home to China during that whole fiasco in 2015 or there abouts. So they had to go to Cadence. 

When they saw the aforementioned directives system, they were floored. 

The thing that ORCAD has going for it is that in the large companies, they get the PCB tools for free, since they buy the multimillion dollar IC design tools.  I've had users verify this on the Altium forum that worked for major companies.

I found out about this when Dave - the ex- regional sales manager of Altium and a guy I worked with back in 1988 doing libraries for who worked for then - PADS - told me the same thing. He soon after jumped ship to Cadence.

I've been doing this a long time - over 3,000 designs with Altium.

If Cadence - who admitted in this vid : 
  
of stealing Altiums GUI, then they should really look at what makes Altium a much more productive tool as compared to Allegro/OrcadX. 

Again... looks alone aren't enough.

If any Cadence employee/manager/developer wants to do a Zoom, Teams, or Google meet I can show them what I mean.

[tszaboo]

They got closer to a much easier interface but there's a lot of things missing that Altium has.  One is dimming when highlighting nets.  Another is Padstacks... good lord.  I've hated them since the first Allegro version years ago.  A zillion individual files with cryptic names for pads and vias. 

How do you change a thermal via in Orcad/X?

- Choose Edit -> Properties.
- Select the Pins/Vias you want to modify
- In the Edit Property window, select the Dyn_Fixed_Therm_Width_Array property and click on the Assign button.
You can choose the value per layer.

How do you do that in Altium?
You have a prosperities window/panel for that.


Dyn_Fixed_Therm_Width_Array is something that a programmer who wears clown shoes for work does. This is not how a professional program looks like. This is a program where a variable name accidentally made it into the UI. And it's not alone. Cryptic stuff everywhere. I'm not kidding when I tried OrCAD it took me half an hour to place the first via and I had to look up Youtube video how to do it.

[nctnico]

They got closer to a much easier interface but there's a lot of things missing that Altium has.  One is dimming when highlighting nets.  Another is Padstacks... good lord.  I've hated them since the first Allegro version years ago.  A zillion individual files with cryptic names for pads and vias. 

That is only if you choose to use cryptic names. I've named my padstacks after the footprint they are used for.

How do you change a thermal via in Orcad/X?

- Choose Edit -> Properties.
- Select the Pins/Vias you want to modify
- In the Edit Property window, select the Dyn_Fixed_Therm_Width_Array property and click on the Assign button.
You can choose the value per layer.

How do you do that in Altium?
You have a prosperities window/panel for that.

Dyn_Fixed_Therm_Width_Array is something that a programmer who wears clown shoes for work does. This is not how a professional program looks like. This is a program where a variable name accidentally made it into the UI. And it's not alone. Cryptic stuff everywhere. I'm not kidding when I tried OrCAD it took me half an hour to place the first via and I had to look up Youtube video how to do it.

That is the wrong way to do it. What you don't want are inconsistencies in a design. Modifying a single pad is something which will be overlooked. For example when a footprint is updated. The right way to set thermal reliefs is through the settings of the polygon (shape) the pads are in when using Allegro. This way you can change a footprint or whatever and the thermal relief settings will still be how you speficied them (in addition to how the thermal relief spacing is defined in the padstack). Altium allows way too much freedom leading to stupid mistakes like having 3 different mounting hole styles on a board (a real life example).

[PlainName]

Altium allows way too much freedom leading to stupid mistakes

Eh? Surely having the freedom to do things the designer didn't envision is good, with the alternative being having to wait, and pay for, and wait some more, updates to use new techniques or whatever. Hey, maybe the new style of boards have three different fixing types!

The way that freedom is implemented, though, is important.

[nctnico]

Altium allows way too much freedom leading to stupid mistakes

Eh? Surely having the freedom to do things the designer didn't envision is good, with the alternative being having to wait, and pay for, and wait some more, updates to use new techniques or whatever. Hey, maybe the new style of boards have three different fixing types!

You are not understanding the problem. The key is to have things defined either in the schematic, padstacks, templates or in the libraries. Having design specific features (customisations) in the PCB layout iself is asking for trouble as a PCB layout doesn't provide a good overview about what is where and what has been customised. IOW: for consistent, maintainable layouts, you will want your PCB layout package not to allow random customisations. Random customisations are like using MS-Paint on the Gerbers.

[tszaboo]

Altium allows way too much freedom leading to stupid mistakes

Eh? Surely having the freedom to do things the designer didn't envision is good, with the alternative being having to wait, and pay for, and wait some more, updates to use new techniques or whatever. Hey, maybe the new style of boards have three different fixing types!

You are not understanding the problem. The key is to have things defined either in the schematic, padstacks, templates or in the libraries. Having design specific features (customisations) in the PCB layout iself is asking for trouble as a PCB layout doesn't provide a good overview about what is where and what has been customised. IOW: for consistent, maintainable layouts, you will want your PCB layout package not to allow random customisations. Random customisations are like using MS-Paint on the Gerbers.

Let's just agree to disagree. For this exact example, you might have:
- Pads that are empty, and they don't care about thermal connections
- Parts like busbars that need to be without thermal relief
- parts that are soldered by a pre heated wave soldering machine and doesn't care too much about the relief
- parts that are hand soldered and thermal relief is necessary
- reliefs coming out 90 degrees or 45 degrees alternating so it doesnt make a Swiss cheese from the ground plane.
And this can be all within the same design. Having flexibility isn't inherently bad, but the PCB designer needs to understand what he is doing.
The Orcad way is suitable if you have a large org. with CIDs making the PCBs, engineers the schematic, and they don't talk to each other, just mock each other behind the back. Even then abbreviated underscores in the UI is just laughable.

[PlainName]

You are not understanding the problem. The key is to have things defined either in the schematic, padstacks, templates or in the libraries. Having design specific features (customisations) in the PCB layout iself is asking for trouble as a PCB layout doesn't provide a good overview about what is where and what has been customised.

While I agree that stuff needs to be defined, the schematic, for instance, is the electrical specification and doesn't necessarily reflect the PCB physicality. Templates... sure. For a one-off it seems no different, but you at least get an ID you can look up somewhere.

However, you or I may be fixed on having some design document that details everything, but other people may not. They may be doing a quick hack, or perhaps that's just the way they like to work. Agile vs waterfall, if you like. The same thing occurs in something simple like Word: you can define styles and apply them appropriately and your document will be easy to maintain, but the choice is there if you just want to make up as you go along. Sometimes, that's exactly what you want to be able to do, and why should the developer define how you can and cannot use his tool?

The solution would be to educate the user not make the PCB equivalent of spaghetti code; it isn't to force them to use the Arduino IDE.

Having said that, I thought the original issue was cryptic variables vs a nice friendly GUI. 

[temperance]

That is the wrong way to do it. What you don't want are inconsistencies in a design. Modifying a single pad is something which will be overlooked. For example when a footprint is updated. The right way to set thermal reliefs is through the settings of the polygon (shape) the pads are in when using Allegro. This way you can change a footprint or whatever and the thermal relief settings will still be how you speficied them (in addition to how the thermal relief spacing is defined in the padstack). Altium allows way too much freedom leading to stupid mistakes like having 3 different mounting hole styles on a board (a real life example).

Wrong, depends on what you're doing. I don't want all my SMD component without thermal reliefs because one component requires a direct connections. As such you have to set those on an individual level.

It seems that for some the Orcad user interface can be a very traumatic experience perhaps a near dead experience. Still beating the same drum 7 years later... Get over it.

[nctnico]

That is the wrong way to do it. What you don't want are inconsistencies in a design. Modifying a single pad is something which will be overlooked. For example when a footprint is updated. The right way to set thermal reliefs is through the settings of the polygon (shape) the pads are in when using Allegro. This way you can change a footprint or whatever and the thermal relief settings will still be how you speficied them (in addition to how the thermal relief spacing is defined in the padstack). Altium allows way too much freedom leading to stupid mistakes like having 3 different mounting hole styles on a board (a real life example).

Wrong, depends on what you're doing. I don't want all my SMD component without thermal reliefs because one component requires a direct connections. As such you have to set those on an individual level.

You can solve this very easely by either using a solid pour or a fat trace. If you (or a coworker) changes the footprint later on (and thus revert any pad modifications back to original), the direct connection will still be there. Any PCB package will have the same problem if/when you update the footprint BTW. Customising anything which is sourced from a library isn't a good idea to begin with.

It seems that for some the Orcad user interface can be a very traumatic experience perhaps a near dead experience. Still beating the same drum 7 years later... Get over it.

I wrote before that Allegro's UI isn't sexy but it is massively productive. Putting an item on a specific coordinate by just typing x followed by the x/y coordinates is way easier compared to Altium's way where you need to enter coordinates into a dialog.

[thm_w]

Altium allows way too much freedom leading to stupid mistakes like having 3 different mounting hole styles on a board (a real life example).

If you want to standardize mounting holes, which is not a bad idea, then you'd have them defined in a library and place them via the schematic.
You can run a comparison check vs. PCB libraries to see if anyone has gone in and modified them, or any other footprints on the board.

I see the value and your point in rigidly defining everything though.

[CadenceAE]

Setting thermals in OrCADX at a pin level. 
Note that if you do change a thermal at the design level, which was defined as something different in the library, you can then get a report indicating all the discrepancies between the design and the library

[Bzzz]

IN addition to not getting feature enhancements, I'll lose out on the database backend behind ActiveBOM which has been worth the cost for annual maintenance.  But I would much rather lose real-time component availability data than lose the ability to open and edit years worth of designs.

BOM checks never yield dependable, valid data for me, so no real loss here. If availability is really critical, I check components individually, or just export a list of items that gets fed into Farnell, Mouser and whoever is listed as primary parts supplier. Sure, takes more time, but shows real-time availability data and no outdated BS.

https://forum.live.altium.com/#/posts/254047
https://forum.live.altium.com/#/posts/254769
https://forum.live.altium.com/#/posts/254305
and probably more.

[mengfei]

How are database Libs in other platforms?

in AD it's still big problem, it's bugging slow!

[tszaboo]

How are database Libs in other platforms?

in AD it's still big problem, it's bugging slow!

You should add the files to exception to your virus scanner, I found that was slowing down the software.