HDL WORKS PRESENTS BOARDTRACE™ 3.2

April 2024, HDL Works announces the release and immediate availability of BoardTrace 3.2,
the PCB / FPGA / Processor connectivity visualization and verification tool.

About BoardTrace

BoardTrace is the only tool in the world to visualize and verify how components (including FPGAs and now microprocessors) connect to each other on 1 or multiple PCBs. It can handle (rotated) connectors as well as shrouds on (through) a backplane. The PCB connection view shows traces for all signals that can be reached through the connectors. Filters and sorting allow you to concentrate on the potential problems.

What is new in BoardTrace 3.2

Menu changes

The ‘Project’ menu in the main menu bar is placed before the ‘Options‘ menu.

Row filters in various views

All filters now have an ‘OK’ and ‘Cancel’ button at the bottom. Clicking outside of the filter will now cancel any changes you made after opening the filter.

Connection view

Transformations can be set/changed using the context menu of a connection unit in the connection view.

Netlist patterns

Support has been added to recognize the following components in a netlist:

0-ohm resistors
Circuit breakers
Un-instantiated units
Fuses
Ferrite beads
Shields

As there is no standard on how to describe 0-ohm resistors and un-instantiated units BoardTrace allows you to specify how they can be recognized for each board separately: either as a regular expression on the component name or as a property name and property value.

0-ohm resistors are not directly removed from the netlist, but both nets are shown connected in the trace and netlist view.

Netlist reduction

Reduction has been added for:

Circuit breakers
Ferrite beads
Fuses
Series capacitors
Test points
Un-instantiated units

Reduction is disabled by default and can be enabled for each item individually per board (Board properties dialog) or be configured in the user preferences for new projects.

Verification

The following checks have been added:

CONN-0024: reports connections between power/ground/pull-up/pull-down nets
CONN-0025: verifies that nets which are indirectly connected (part of the same model net, for instance through a 0 Ω resistor) have the same type.
CONN-0026: verifies that nets which are indirectly connected have the same voltage.

Some of these messages will be duplicates of the CONN-0024 messages, but for CONN-0025 and CONN-0026 the hot-error navigation will highlight the connected nets in the trace view while CONN-0024 will highlight the connection in the connection view.

Wiring tool

A new wiring utility has been created to wire symbols in Cadence Allegro / SystemCapture and Altium Designer.
It is started from the 'Tools >> Wiring' tool menu.

The main advantages of the new wiring tool:

Wires multiple components
Change any signal name before use in wiring
Set different ports to use in Allegro wiring
Set signal direction
Import microprocessor report files
Import from CSV file for non FPGA/microprocessor components

This first release can wire symbols in Cadence Allegro / SystemCapture and Altium Designer.

CSV export

The CSV data export dialogs received additional options on what kind of file header should be created. The Line separator option allows to to specify the line style ending.

About HDL Works

HDL Works develops and markets high-performance, intuitive tools for complex HDL design / Board verification across a wide spectrum of applications. Its software products are available on Windows and Linux operating systems. HDL Works currently holds BoardTrace, EASE, HDL Companion and IO Checker in its product portfolio. Headquartered in Ede, The Netherlands, HDL Works is privately held.

HDL Works BV
Keplerlaan 12
6716 BS Ede
The Netherlands

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BoardTrace, EASE, HDL Companion, IO Checker and Scriptum are trademarks of HDL Works.