Those routes look terrible. Maybe if everything you're doing is electrically short and there are no high speed routes, it would work great. Basically it's wonderful if all you make are blinkenlight projects.
But if you have to input all of the data that makes up a good route (including coupling, ground/power planes, trace length matching, PDN noise, stackup, EMI/C rules, etc, etc), and then review the whole thing anyway, what's the point of the autorouter?
Also the article says nothing about the various algorithms involved, which are interesting from a computational geometry standpoint. But the gulf between algorithm or academic example and "commercial router" is huge!
This blog post is just... not very good. It's how I imagine a software person who made some stupid blinky LED thing thinks about hardware.
One of the main points the post is missing is the distinction between a placer and a router. Most (all?) PCB design tools do not come with a connectivity-based placer. They only ship with a maze-, grid- or shape-based router.
Placement and Routing together is generally the domain of the very-expensive EDA tools inferred in the main article.
analognoise|7 years ago
But if you have to input all of the data that makes up a good route (including coupling, ground/power planes, trace length matching, PDN noise, stackup, EMI/C rules, etc, etc), and then review the whole thing anyway, what's the point of the autorouter?
Also the article says nothing about the various algorithms involved, which are interesting from a computational geometry standpoint. But the gulf between algorithm or academic example and "commercial router" is huge!
This blog post is just... not very good. It's how I imagine a software person who made some stupid blinky LED thing thinks about hardware.
arbie|7 years ago
Placement and Routing together is generally the domain of the very-expensive EDA tools inferred in the main article.