Ultiboard PCB software

Ultiboard software is a part from the Multisim , Circuit Design Suite package , designed by NI ( National Instruments ) .
Why I split this review in two parts ?

Because the Ultiboard software is less user friendly than Multisim, which is very easy to use .
Ultiboard is a part from the Circuit Design Suite software that helps you do design printed circuit boards from a circuit file created in various circuit drawing software from : Orcad , Protel , Multisim , Calay etc.
How you can see in this small video tutorial prepared , first of all you need to draw the circuit and after that to transfer the design to the Ultiboard software .

After you have imported the nets list you need to create the board outline , by choose a standard outline file from the database manager or creating a board outline using board wizard ( we couldn’t use board wizard , maybe because we used an evaluation version ) .
In the help file says that you can use autoplacement for components by going to the Autoroute»Start Autoplacement and if you want to place only selected parts, selected Autoroute»Autoplace Selected Parts , but we couldn’t use these options ( maybe because we used the evaluation version ) .
If you can not use autoplacement option you can place all components one by one .
Before you start routing all traces you need to configure the PCB ( traces width, drills dimensions , pads dimensions, layers , etc .) from the Options >>PCB Properties and Options>>Global Preferences .
If you want to create a printed circuit board you will need to read the help file if you want to use some special functions available or to configure PCB settings .
Also in the Ultiboard software you have many features that you don’t need .
Some interesting features of Ultiboard pcb design software are PCB Transmission Line Calculator that helps you to control reflections on high-speed PCBs (by calculating the characteristic impedance of the trace (Zo) and then terminating it with its characteristic impedance ) and PCB Differential Impedance Calculator that performs calculations for two traces that carry signals that are exactly equal and opposite (a differential pair) .
Differential Impedance Calculator can be used to calculate the following parameters for differential pairs:
Characteristic Impedance (Zo) , Per unit length Capacitance (Co) ,Per unit length Inductance (Lo) Propogation Delay (tpd), Differential Impedance (Zdiff) and supports Microstrip , Embedded Microstrip , Centered Stripline ,Asimetric Stripline .
Transmission Line Calculator can be used to calculate the following parameters for typical printed circuit board trace geometries: Per unit length Capacitance (Co), Per unit length Inductance (Lo) , Propogation Delay (tpd) and supports: Microstrip TraceEmbedded Microstrip Trace, Asymmetric Stripline Trace ,Dual Stripline Trace .
Also using Ultiboard you have more features like : Autoroute , Netslist editor , design rules check , auto renumber parts , an 3D view of the printed circuit board .
Also if you want to use this software you need to spend some thousands euro (3-5) for a complete package that include NI Multisim and Ultiboard software .
In the package provided with this software you have a very nice help file and some interesting samples circuits .
This software can be downloaded from the NI website .