-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueLevel Up Your Design Skills
This month, our contributors discuss the PCB design classes available at IPC APEX EXPO 2024. As they explain, these courses cover everything from the basics of design through avoiding over-constraining high-speed boards, and so much more!
Opportunities and Challenges
In this issue, our expert contributors discuss the many opportunities and challenges in the PCB design community, and what can be done to grow the numbers of PCB designers—and design instructors.
Embedded Design Techniques
Our expert contributors provide the knowledge this month that designers need to be aware of to make intelligent, educated decisions about embedded design. Many design and manufacturing hurdles can trip up designers who are new to this technology.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
PCB Designers Are Really Product Designers
February 9, 2023 | Zachariah Peterson, NWESEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
As I look back on 2022, I’m realizing that my company plays multiple roles in client projects beyond just designing circuits and PCBs. Sure, we’re primarily a PCB design company, but we also help with things that happen outside the PCB. This includes tasks like enclosure design, defining mechanical constraints, simulating electrical behavior, mating boards into larger assemblies, selecting cabling, and defining test requirements, all of which slowly creep into the standard scope of work for design projects.
The same set of tasks have crept into CAD software features, especially in the PCB design space. Both mechanical design tools and PCB design software have expanded their capabilities beyond enclosure/fixture design and board layout, respectively. Looking at some of the capabilities in a platform like Fusion 360, the MCAD side has significantly outpaced the ECAD side.
In the ECAD/EDA world, we still focus mostly on simulation and fit to enclosure, but there is so much more that goes into full-scale product development, and the ECAD software world should start to move much faster toward the goals I outline below.
What PCB Designers Need for Product Development
As I mentioned in my earlier I-Connect007 article on simulation, designers need much simpler simulation access either inside their native PCB design tool or through a direct and seamless integration with another design/simulation program1. Now that ECAD/MCAD collaboration has helped bring electrical and mechanical co-design under one roof, designers can instantly pass ECAD data into the MCAD system and vice versa.
What else can the ECAD industry do to support product design? Based on both my personal experience with client projects and current ECAD industry trends, here are some things I’d love to see.
Cable and Harness Design
This area is finally coming to fruition from my preferred EDA vendor, and I expect similar features from others. Many products, whether they are multi-board assemblies or requiring a connection to an external product, may do so with custom cables, custom or standard mated connectors, or flex ribbons.
Harness and cable definition at the logic level, visual integration into the assembly, and even physical design of custom cable assemblies—these are all essential parts of product development. The immediate benefit is in MCAD, where the connector and cable can be viewed in a larger system. However, the broader benefit is in simulation and rules checking, where logical definitions in interconnects are used to examine electrical behavior.
To read this entire article, which appeared in the January 2023 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.
Suggested Items
Altus Group Helps BitBox Unlock Productivity and Efficiency Gains with New Reflow Oven
04/22/2024 | Altus GroupAltus Group, a leading provider of capital equipment, has recently assisted BitBox, a UK-based electronics design, engineering and manufacturing company in upgrading its operations with the implementation of a new reflow oven from Heller Industries.
Real Time with... IPC APEX EXPO 2024: Exploring IPC's PCB Design Courses with Kris Moyer
04/18/2024 | Real Time with...IPC APEX EXPOGuest Editor Kelly Dack and IPC instructor Kris Moyer discuss IPC's PCB design training and education offerings. They delve into course topics such as design fundamentals, mil/aero, rigid-flex, RF design, and advanced design concepts. They also highlight material selection for high-speed design, thermal management, and dissipation techniques. The interview wraps up with details about how to access these courses online.
Cadence Unveils Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 Systems
04/18/2024 | Cadence Design SystemsThe Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems offer increased capacity, and scale from job sizes of 16 million gates up to 48 billion gates, so the largest SoCs can be tested as a whole rather than just partial models, ensuring proper functionality and performance.
Signal Integrity Expert Donald Telian to Teach 'Signal Integrity, In Practice' Masterclass Globally
04/17/2024 | PRLOGDonald Telian and The EEcosystem announce the global tour of "Signal Integrity, In Practice," a groundbreaking LIVE masterclass designed to equip hardware engineers with essential skills for solving Signal Integrity (SI) challenges in today's fast-paced technological landscape.
On the Line With... Podcast Talks With Cadence Expert on Manufacturing
04/18/2024 | I-Connect007In “PCB 3.0: A New Design Methodology: Manufacturing” Patrick Davis returns to the podcast to talk about design rules. As design considerations become more and more complex, so, too, do the rulesets designers must abide by.