From the course: Learning PCB Design with OrCAD

OrCAD Capture and PCB Editor differences - OrCAD Tutorial

From the course: Learning PCB Design with OrCAD

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OrCAD Capture and PCB Editor differences

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- [Instructor] How does the OrCAD software suite take you from a printed circuit design in your mind to a physical printed circuit board? If you've used other PCB design tools, the design process is usually integrated into a single software program. Well, with OrCAD, the design flow is handled by these two programs, OrCAD Capture and OrCAD PCB Editor. First let's understand how the OrCAD software programs play a role in the PCB design process. The PCB design process is split up into three main phases. Phase one is the schematic phase, then there's the simulation phase, and finally there's the PCB layout phase. Subsequently, OrCAD is separated into three software programs. The first software program is OrCAD Capture for schematics. Then there's PSpice for simulation and rapid prototyping. And finally, there's PCB Editor for printed circuit board layout. So what is OrCAD Capture? In OrCAD Capture you would create the master plan for your conceptual circuit design including part libraries, part information, and this is where you would generate your bill of materials as well. Ideally, the second phase would be circuit simulation in PSpice to really check circuit functionality. This phase is oftentimes not feasible, so the designer usually transfers the conceptual schematic directly from Capture to PCB Editor. So the last phase is to build and draw out the physical PCB, and this phase is handled by PCB Editor. The OrCAD software suite separates the different phases of PCB development. This separation of tools allows a user to focus on a specific phase of the design process, whether it's schematic design, simulation, or PCB layout. This adds flexibility to the PCB design workflow.

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