Loading a placement strategy file

Strategy files set up your screen display by highlighting appropriate elements such as place outlines, electrical connections, and reference designators, and making irrelevant elements (such as plane layers) invisible. OrCAD recommends loading the strategy file PLSTD.SF before performing manual placement.

To load a placement strategy file

1 From the File menu, choose Load. The Load File dialog box appears.

2 If necessary, change Files of type to Strategy.

3 Select PLSTD.SF from the list and choose the Open button.

Disabling the power and ground nets

If the power and ground nets are not critical to placement, disable routing for all nets attached to plane layers. This significantly improves system performance during placement, because these (typically) large nets often have no bearing on placement.

To disable routing for nets attached to plane layers

1 Choose the spreadsheet toolbar button, then choose Nets. The Nets spreadsheet appears.

2 Using the C key, select the nets that are attached to plane layers (usually, GND and VCC).

3 From the pop-up menu, choose Enable<->Disable. In the Nets spreadsheet, the Routing Enabled column for the nets changes to No.