Cadence OrCAD PCB Designer

Figure 11. Screenshot of the routed board for the simple, one-transistor amplifier. The tracks
are yellow, which shows that they are on the bottom of the board. Your screen may not match
this image exactly because it depends on which classes are active at the time.
2. Choose Route > Connect from the menu.
3. The Options control panel changes to reflect the current activity and it now shows the
layers available for routing. We want all the tracks to go on the bottom of the board
so change the Act (active) layer to Bottom, which will be painted yellow. You can also
change the Alt (alternative) layer to Top, which is painted green, but we will need only
one layer for this simple circuit. You will see that Line lock is set to 45 (degrees), which
determines the allowed change in direction of a track.
Take a look at the Find control panel too. This automatically changes so that you can
select the relevant objects for routing.
4. Left-click on a pin to start routing a segment – the region of a track that runs from one pin
to another. A segment of the ratsnest highlights to show that it is available for routing.
5. Move the mouse towards the pin at the other end of the highlighted ratsnest. A thick
yellow line is drawn to show the copper track.
6. Click at intermediate points to fix corners. These will automatically turn through 45°,
which is good practice. It is a bad idea to draw 90° corners because they are prone to
breakage during etching.
7. Click on the destination pin to complete the track.
8. Repeat to route all segments of the ratsnest. Select a pin, right-click, choose Add Connect
and draw the track.
Run a design rules check to detect any problems with routing and save your board.
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