Issue link: https://resources.pcb.cadence.com/i/1180288
Allegro/OrCAD Rigid Flex Design Creation Best Practices _______________________________________________________________________ Learn more at Cadence Online Support - https://support.cadence.com Page 33 © 2016 Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Flex and Rigid Flex Bend Areas This section of the document focuses on the Flex and the Rigid Flex bend areas. Overview One of the advantages of using Flex or Rigid Flex is the ability of the circuit to bend or twist to meet a particular form. A bend is defined by the side or direction of the bend, the finish angle, and the radius. Other considerations include allowing or disallowing components to be placed on a bend, or even how far from a bend the component must be to avoid interference between the bending surface and the component. Placing vias within a bend area is avoided to prevent weak spots where the via may cause a failure in the bend area. Defining a bend and some of the characteristics of the bend are supported in the Allegro 17.2 QIR 1 release. Defining a Bend Area To define a bend area, perform the following steps: 1 Choose the Setup - Bend - Create menu. The Create Bend Area form opens. 2 Add a unique bend area name. Duplicate names not allowed. 3 Add a bend line location and the bend parameters. 4 To add a bend line, specify the start and end coordinates. You can also pick the corordinates on the PCB Editor canvas. 5 Optionally, add via and package keepouts with oversizing, if desired. Bend Areas cannot overlap. If an attempt to create or modify a bend area results in a situation with an overlap of bend area geometry, the newly added or modified bend area creation will fail, and no bend data or geometry is added to the design database for that instance. The location of the bend line or parameters will need to be modified. The bend line is the most critical part of a bend area. The bend line represents the midpoint of the bend and the extents of the bend area along the line's axis. The parameters defined in the Create Bend Area form are attached as a property to the bend line. This information is transferred to MCAD through the EDMD Collaborative data format (IDX).