Note that the below information was taken from Fred Aulich's documentation for Mentor Graphics (a hardcopy of which is available in the lab). The information i provided here is just to help start the software and give a very general and basic overview of each step required in the making of the PC board layout.
A reference to a more detailed desciption is given occasionally .
ABOUT MENTOR GRAPHICS

Below is just a brief description of what Mentor is about, how many stages it includes, a description of the purpose of each stage, and a reference to where more detailed information can be found in Bold Browser (the On-line help for Mentor software).

TO START MENTOR GRAPHICS

  • At the unix prompt, change directory to /mentorb.2
    ( cd /mentorb.2 ).

  • Source CSHRC.X11 file.

  • Type "dmgr" at the unix prompt to run the Design Manager utility.

    A dmgr edit wondow will appear. On the right side of the edit window are icons of the files and directories present and on the left side are the icons of all the different mentor edit session icons.

    ON-LINE HELP

    Help related to any topic can be found in bold_browser.
    To invoke the help manual, type "bold_browser" after being in /mentorb.2 directory.
    A "Bookcase" with many different topics opens up. I would suggest looking at "PCB" topic, when a pop down menu appreas, choose "Using PCB design tools".

    Another way of getting help about general topics is to select, from the menu, file>open>document and choose the document of interest.

    A word search could also be performed if desired. In the menu bar, click on search>word list and type in the name of the word you are willing to search. A list of that word occurences will appear in the search result window.
    However, this search is less helpful since it lists all the documents where such word appears eventhough it might not be related to the topic of interest.
    It might be helpful only as a start point to a more defined search.

    DIFFERENT EDIT ICONS

  • DESIGN ARCHITECT (DA)

    The objective of DA is to create a netlist using symbols to represent each component in the circuit. Symbols could be found in mentor libraries or created using the "open symbol" session editor.

    A detailed description of how this is done is available in Bold_browser in the "design architect user manual".

    There is also "design architect training workbook" which has labs and exercises on the steps required to create a new symbol.

  • LIBRARIAN

    In Librarian, part numbers will be created and stored in a catalog.
    Four geometries need to be created in Librarian:

  • PACKAGE

    In Librarian, a catalog was created which mapped symbols to geometries. The objective of package is to package those symbols onto the geometries. "PCB package user manual" could be used for reference.

  • LAYOUT

    In Layout, the components are placed and traces for the PC board are routed. By invoking Layout (double clicking on layout icon), an empty PC board appears having the dimensions and shape that were created in Librarian. "Layout user manual" could be used as an aid.

  • FABLINK

    In Librarian, an artwork order was created, in Fablink, plots for each of the layers defined in artwork order are created.
    These plots are stored infiles called gerber files.
    Details are found in "Fablink user manual".

    Files containing the PC board layout information

    A list of the files that should be available to make sure the board is ready to be imported to the PCB router machine are the following:

  • aperture
  • aperture_table_report
  • drill
  • drill_table_report
  • artwork plots files.(one for each of the layer as created in the artwork geometry in Librarian)