Allegro Netlister and Footprint Filters not working as intended?

[Andy.K]

My workflow is to create a schematic in eeschema (8.0.5 currently) and export a Cadence Allegro netlist which is used by a PCB Design Bureau that uses Allegro. The PCB design bureau has its own library of footprints each of which has a PSM file and a unique reference number - eg X1234.PSM

The documentation for the Allegro Exporter at David Schneider / KiCad-Allegro interop · GitLab suggests that:

… the main enabling feature is that your parts should have a footprint filter or footprint field that has the name of a .psm (without extension) in your Allegro site’s psmpath. Additional entries in the footprint filter list will create a ALT_SYMBOLS property on the part. Any non-glob filter will be used, so you should be able to create a hybrid pcbnew/Allegro symbol library – you’ll just have to make footprints for both backends.

So in my Library I select a part and change the footprint filter to X1234

Then in the schematic, I update the part(s) from the library and run the Allegro Netlister.

If I search the output netlist X1234 does not appear in any of the parts.

Based on my understanding, it doesn’t seem to work…

Since I am not using KiCAD for Layout, if I just change the footprint reference for the part to X1234 then that does appear in the netlist, but prefixed with the component value:

!1k_x1234!1K;,
R101

I’m no expert in Allegro, so I am wondering if this is enough to work?

[eelik]

Few, if any, of us are experts in Allegro, and that Netlister is a 3rd party tool. Probably you should ask the developer of that tool.

EDIT: it looks like @dnschneid, the mentioned developer, is a member here. Let’s see if he answers.

[dnschneid]

The netlist.txt doesn’t have packaging info in it. The generator will create a devices directory alongside the netlist.txt, containing info for each type of part in your design. It is there in the .txt for that part (in your example, probably “devices/1k.txt”) that the footprint gets listed. It should be in the first line, next to “PACKAGE” as well as an extra property ALT_SYMBOLS if you have more than one footprint filter (so you can pick one inside Allegro).

If that’s not working, check the logs from Allegro when you import the netlist. It should print out everything it’s reading in, and complain somewhere in the middle that something is wrong.