Introduction

Course Objectives and Overview This course will provide you with an introduction to Multisim's many features. At the end of the three hours, you should have a basic understanding of the user interface (UI), schematic capture and simulation. You will also see how Multisim fits into the broader PCB design flow (Figure 1 and Figure 2). The course is split into sections, each containing associated exercises to help solidify the concepts presented. There is also an Appendix, which provides some direction on how to integrate Multisim with National Instruments’ products to create a truly integrated benchtop platform for design and verification.

Course Materials In order to successfully complete this course, you will need the following: Multisim Software. Multisim User Guide and helpfiles (available in soft copies installed with the software). Associated circuits (associated circuits found on the CD in the back of this book).

The Electronics Workbench Portfolio

Electronics Workbench Product Flow

Multicap Multicap 9 is the industry’s most intuitive and powerful schematic capture program. Multicap’s innovative and timesaving features, including modeless operation, powerful autowiring and a comprehensive database organized into logical parts bins on your desktop, allow designs to be captured almost as fast as they can be conceptualized. Repetitive tasks are optimized, leaving you freer to create, test and ultimately perfect your designs, resulting in superior products and minimizing time-to-market.

Multisim Multisim, the world’s only interactive circuit simulator, allows you to design better products in less time. Multisim includes a completely integrated version of Multicap, making it the ideal tool for capturing schematics and then instantly simulating circuits. Multisim 9 also offers integration with National Instruments LabVIEW and SignalExpress, allowing you to tightly integrate design and test.

Ultiboard Ultiboard has been carefully designed to maximize your productivity. By optimizing the most common repetitive tasks such as part and trace placement, the number of keystrokes and mouse movements required to lay out any design has been dramatically reduced. Ultiboard handles today’s higher speed designs with ease using constraint driven layout. Innovative features such as Real-Time design rule checking, “Push & Shove” components & traces, component nudging with trace rubberbanding, “Follow-me” trace editing and an Automatic Connection machine ensure that you rapidly complete an error-free board.

Ultiroute for Professional Customers For all but the most basic PCBs, the density and complexity of today’s designs make manual component and trace placement techniques impractical. For these designs, Electronics Workbench offers Ultiroute — a state-of-the-art autorouting and autoplacement tool. Ultiroute ensures high circuit performance and lower production costs for these demanding projects by uniquely combining the best of gridless (shape-based) and grid-based routing.

Integrated Design and Validation with National Instruments

The Integrated Design Flow

LabVIEW NI LabVIEW is the graphical development environment for creating flexible and scalable test, measurement, and control applications rapidly and at minimal cost. With LabVIEW, engineers and scientists interface with real-world signals, analyze data for meaningful information, and share results and applications. Regardless of experience, LabVIEW makes development fast and easy for all users.

SignalExpress SignalExpress is interactive software for quickly acquiring, comparing, automating, and storing measurements. Use SignalExpress to streamline your exploratory and automated measurement tasks for electronics design, validation, and test. SignalExpress introduces an innovative approach to configuring your measurements using intuitive drag-and-drop steps that do not require code development.

NI ELVIS National Instruments Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Suite (NI ELVIS) is a LabVIEW-based design and prototyping environment for university science and engineering laboratories. NI ELVIS consists of LabVIEW-based virtual instruments, a multifunction data acquisition device, and a custom-designed benchtop workstation and prototyping board. This combination provides a ready-to-use suite of instruments found in all educational laboratories. Because it is based on LabVIEW and provides complete data acquisition and prototyping capabilities, the system is ideal for academic coursework, from lower-division classes to advanced project-based curricula. Curriculum applications include electronics design, communications, controls, mechatronics, instrumentation, and data acquisition.