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The Shaughnessy Report: The Year in Review
December 31, 2008 |Estimated reading time: 16 minutes
The economy slowed, but innovation didn't.
As we look back at 2008, it's easy to dwell on the bad news - layoffs, bailouts, and so on. We can even track the decreasing earnings statements throughout the year.
In 2008 we saw a plethora of new PCB design and design engineering tools enter the market, and plenty of great ideas as well. System-level design was everywhere, and not just as a marketing buzzword. PCB and RF design seemed to overlap more each day. Signal integrity and EMC issues were everywhere, even on lower-tech applications.
There were mergers and acquisitions, and even plenty of talk of a merger that never happened.
Here are some of the biggest design news stories from 2008 as reported by Design007.
January
The year started off with a bang. In January Design007 launched Inside Design, the only weekly newsletter devoted to PCB design and design engineering. Columns include "The Signal Integrity Evangelist" by S.I. guru Eric Bogatin; "Maxed Out" by Max Maxfield, author of electronics must-haves such as Bebop to the Boolean Boogie and EDA: Where Electronics Begins; and "The Sweet Spot" by Sunstone Circuits CEO Terry Heilman. And the Shaughnessy Report focuses on a different person, company or concept each week.
Market indicators were still on the upswing early in the year. The EDA Consortium announced that the EDA industry had grown 7.2% during Q3 of 2007.
The technologists at the NAVSEA Crane naval weapons facility have been working on the Emerging Critical Interconnect Technology Program (E/CIT) for some time now, and the research began to yield training classes in design and fabrication methods. A collaborative effort linking the DoD, private industry and academia, E/CIT's mission is to assure that the U.S. military and electronics industry have early access to emerging interconnect technologies. Richard Snogren and E/CIT Program Manager Jason Ferguson are spearheading E/CIT's development of new technologies such as embedded passives.
Senior PCB designer Kelly Dack offered his take on an interesting idea, DFP, or Design For Profitability. After all, it's all about profitability, doesn't it? Kelly explained how the "lowly" PCB designer actually has the power to design profit into a product and design out excess costs. Many designers seem to think that that sort of thinking is above their pay grade, but Kelly is on a quest to empower designers to take more control of their designs.
February
DesignCon enjoyed one of its biggest shows ever in 2008, and Design007 was there. Our Real Time With...DesignCon video coverage of the design engineering movers and shakers set the tone for the year. And no interview drew as many comments - in agreement and disagreement - as my chat with IBM's Bruce Archambeault. Bruce called for the makers of signal integrity and EMC simulation tools to make a product that can provide accurate measurements through connectors in the multigigabits/second operating range.
Altium introduced its Innovation Station, a workstation that combines Altium Designer with an updated Desktop NanoBoard reconfigurable hardware platform. Innovation Station allows designers to design and verify a complete system. NanoBoard lets users plug in a variety of daughter cards containing different FPGAs; designers can compare the performance trade-offs of different FPGAs without changing their designs.
In February, Mentor Graphics posted $285 million in revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008.
Zuken released its latest version of the E.3 modular engineering software. In addition to tools for schematics, fluids and panels, the E.3 cable tool helps engineers develop in-depth wiring, cabling, and harness designs for automotive, military and aerospace. The tools all work under the object-oriented E.3 kernel.
Ansoft Corporation released Q3D Extractor v8, the latest version of its 3D parasitic extraction software. Q3D Extractor performs the 2D and 3D electromagnetic field simulation needed to extract RLCG parameters from an interconnect structure. Q3D Extractor v8 included a new capacitance solver that can extract the capacitance and conductance with lossy dielectrics.
March
Zuken merged its E.3 engineering software technology into its CADSTAR lineup to create CADSTAR E.logic. An alternative to CADSTAR's schematic tool, CADSTAR E.logic draws from E.3's schematic tool set and allows synchronization of electrical and electronic design processes.
PCB Libraries Inc. changed its name to PCB Matrix Corp. Founder Tom Hausherr said the Des Plaines, Illinois-based provider of libraries and land pattern calculators outgrew its original name. PCB Matrix is currently working with IPC on software designed to automate IPC standards.
Mentor Graphics collaborated with Applied Micro Circuits to donate $20 million worth of EDA tools to the Vietnam National University of Ho Chi Minh City. Through its Higher Education Program, Mentor has been helping to cultivate the study of PCB and IC design around the world, particularly in Asia.
ANSYS announced plans to acquire Ansoft Corporation, a signal integrity simulation tool provider based in Pittsburgh. Ansoft was profitable, and renowned by signal integrity engineers for its field solvers. ANSYS - known for its Mechanical and Multiphysics analysis tools - was already expanding its lineup, acquiring CFD software maker Fluent in 2006 and the CFX code in 2003. ANSYS investors didn't like the idea at first, afraid that the company's first venture into EDA territory was too risky. But a stock split in May helped reassure the worried stockholders.
Sunstone released a DFM Add-On for CadSoft's EAGLE PCB layout tool. And one year after announcing the idea, Sunstone also launched the ECOSystem Design Environment, a collaborative, open environment open to PCB designers, vendors and suppliers. ECOSystems offers designers the use of design tools at little or no cost.
April
The 2008 Printed Circuits Expo, APEX and the Designers Summit got under way in Las Vegas on April 1, drawing some of the largest crowds in years. And 2008 marked the biggest Designers Summit ever. Our Real Time With...IPC camera crews captured interviews with embedded passive paper author Andrew Palczewski of Harris Communications and first-time committee attendee Jack Olson of Caterpillar. Special guest editor Rick Hartley worked the floor, interviewing Kelly Dack on the subject of Design For Profitability, and Dynamic Engineering's Javier Jimenez on HDI. The show will return to the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Convention Center March 29-April 2, 2009, with Real Time providing the best media coverage available.
The EDA Consortium released its data for Q4 of 2007. The results: EDA industry revenue was up 6.7% over the previous year's same quarter. But PCB/MCM was down 10.4% from the previous Q4.
After a lot of discussion and hard work - and with plenty of celebration during Printed Circuits Expo - IPC released Revision B of IPC-7095 for BGAs and fine-pitch BGAs. The revision was developed due to the popularity of BGAs, especially lead-free BGAs, and the prevalence of applications that require leaded and lead-free materials on the same board.
EMS provider Hunter Technology Corporation opened a PCB design facility in San Diego. This was part of Hunter's plan to expand design services through its new subsidiary CADParts Consulting.
Agilent Technologies announced a ten-fold increase in the speed of Momentum, the planar 3D electromagnetic simulator for RF module and RFIC design. Momentum is part of the first update of Agilent's Advanced Design System (ADS) 2008 EDA software platform.
May
DownStream Technologies released CAM350 Release 10, which is completely integrated with the company's Blueprint document authoring tool. DownStream co-founder Rick Almeida said the unified tool set would let users create and manage everything needed during post-processing.
DesignAdvance released CircuitSpace v2.2, allowing users to have bi-directional communication between the layout stage and a schematic in PDF form. This feature helps designers and engineers to more quickly verify and select components, nets and pins. Cross-probing lets users populate Allegro designs with DesignAdvance's interactive clustering feature.
Attendance at PCB East 2008 was down, and many exhibitors blamed the location - Tinley Park, west of Chicago. Still, those that did attend made sure not to miss the keynote and the EDA tools panel discussion. Technologists from Zuken, Agilent and Mentor Graphics outlined where their companies were headed. My favorite line: Quit trying to get out of the box and start stretching the box instead.
Apache Design Solutions moved farther into the PCB space with the launch of Sentinel-PI, said to be the industry's first fully integrated chip-package-system co-design and co-analysis solution for power integrity. Apache primarily served the IC arena until its October 2007 acquisition of San Jose-based Optimal Corporation. Optimal's tools do it all, providing analysis for IC, SiP and PCB designs, while importing all the CAD data via the same front end. Watch Apache expand its presence in PCB and system-level analysis.
The new Altium Designer blurred the lines between ECAD and MCAD. The newest release of Altium's flagship engineering tool enabled electronics designers to fit their boards into enclosures in real time. By using the non-proprietary STEP 3D file format, Altium allows ECAD-MCAD collaboration without forcing firms to purchase add-ons or use a specific MCAD package.
Intercept released version 5.2 of its Pantheon PCB, hybrid and RF layout tool. The new version offers enhanced design reuse capabilities with a new generation of block design technology. Pantheon permits complex portions of a PCB design to be stored in a library and reused later, and RF circuits can be maintained separately within mixed-digital and RF designs.
Cadence Design Systems and Mentor Graphics collaborated in the publication of the first book on Open Verification Methodology (OVM). Step-by-Step Functional Verification with SystemVerilog and OVM covers functional verification and doesn't have much to offer PCB designers and engineers. But a lot of people were surprised Cadence and Mentor could cooperate long enough to write a book.
June
Santa Clara, California-based Sigrity Inc. added enhancements to its signal and power integrity analysis tools, including SPEED2000, PowerSI, PowerDC, Broadband SPICE, OptimizePI, XtractIM and Unified Package Designer (UPD).
I didn't attend Design Automation Conference 2008 in Anaheim; the PCB content at DAC has dropped to almost zero over the past few years. But I thought this was interesting: The first-ever EDA bloggers meeting was held at DAC in June.
EDA tool maker AWR released Version 2008 of its Microwave Office environment for high-frequency PCB, IC and module design. This version includes 100 enhancements and improvements to the user interface, as well as an interface to Mentor's Calibre tool set.
The Cadence-Mentor merger merriment began in June, with Cadence's announcement of an offer to acquire Mentor for $16 per share, for a total value of about $1.6 billion. Mentor responded by unanimously rejecting that proposal as both too low and unlikely to get past antitrust regulators anyway.
Brazil is a major high-tech center. The Sao Paulo fabricator Micropress sponsored a workshop on PCB design and technology. Flex007 columnist Joe Fjelstad and high-speed design instructor Rick Hartley spoke at the daylong event, which drew technologists from all over Brazil and Argentina.
In June, I attended the first IPC Design Conference to be held in Montreal. Many of the attendees were designers working in Montreal or in Canada's "Silicon North" area in Kanata. The accents were different, but the design problems were the same. In one Shaughnessy Report column, I discussed the growing international demand for design instruction.
July
EMA Design Automation added Digi-Key parts information to OrCAD Capture CIS. This gives Capture CIS users access to more than 1 million orderable parts on their desktop during parts selection. EMA created a Web-based Component Information Portal to facilitate this move.
Zuken released the latest version of its free CADSTAR Express tool. The free tool has a limit of 300 pins and 50 components, and gives users a taste of what it's like using CADSTAR 10.0. Zuken includes a manual for helping users get started with Express.
Cadence reported a drop in earnings for Q2 2008.
Altium announced a major increase in investment in China, where it estimated that 300,000 engineers and engineering students use pirated Altium software. The Sydney-based company would like to convert those users into licensed customers.
August
Design007 and the rest of the I-Connect007 family inaugurated an entirely new Web site. Built completely from the foundation up to our specs, the new site is designed to handle the hundreds of audio and video interviews that we generate, not to mention the dozens of news articles that appear on our pages each day. The new site has a better look and feel, and it's set up to expand as we expand.
Agilent Technologies announced shipment of its Genesys 2008.07 release, which supports exporting RF board masks and artwork to a wider variety of manufacturers. Agilent said this allows RF designers to bring their designs back into Genesys for final EM verification, after using a mainstream tool set for layout.
Cadence announced that it had withdrawn its proposal to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Mentor Graphics common stock. Mentor responded a few days later, and that was that.
Do we detect a trend? The EDA Consortium announced that EDA industry revenue for Q1 2008 was down 1.2%, with PCB/MCM down 1.4% from the previous Q1.
ANSYS wrapped up its acquisition of Ansoft, worth about $832 million in cash and ANSYS common stock. Dr. Zoltan Cendes, founder and CTO of Ansoft, became CTO of ANSYS.
Cadence introduced constraint-driven HDI design capabilities as part of the company's SPB 16.2 release of Allegro and OrCAD, including new objects and enhanced rules for microvias. Cadence also increased layout-driven RF PCB design capabilities by adding a bi-directional interface to Agilent's ADS platform.
Mentor Graphics announced a loss of revenue for Q2 2008.
September
Sunstone Circuits launched its IDF Plug-In for PCB123. This is a free tool that lets PCB designers import designs for use in mechanical and electrical CAD systems in a bi-directional, neutral format in Sunstone's ECOSystem Design Environment. Also in September, Sunstone released LiveBOM, an interactive bill of materials that provides designers with pricing, availability and part information from parts distributor Digi-Key.
AWR and Mentor Graphics teamed up to create a high-frequency PCB co-design flow, AWR Connected for Mentor Graphics. This eliminated the need for file translation between Mentor's Expedition Enterprise design environment and AWR's Microwave Office microwave and RF design environment. Library data is updated across both environments, and circuit and electromagnetic simulation is available no matter which tool is being used.
DesignAdvance released CircuitSpace v3.0, which allows PCB designers to design and preserve physical hierarchy throughout layout and component placement, similar to the way IC design tools operate.
Altium expanded its reseller channel in Japan. The company inked VAR deals with six distributors: Advanced Technology Corporation of Japan, ADT Co., Ryoyo Electro Corporation, Sophia Systems Co., Tokyo Electron Device Limited and Vitec System Engineering.
PCB West 2008 drew a good crowd at its new location, the Santa Clara Marriott, just around the corner from the old site, the Santa Clara Convention Center. The "Free Tuesday" sessions were popular, and the show attracted first-time exhibitors such as JETPCB and Dassault Systemes ENOVIA.
Agilent Technologies introduced what it termed the EDA industry's fastest signal integrity circuit simulator for multigigabit, high-speed data link design. The Transient-Convolution Simulator achieves a three-fold simulation speed improvement for signal integrity simulations.
When CAD meets CAM: It's not a huge news story, but this could be you. Jack Olson, a circuit board designer with Caterpillar, spent a few days with Mike Tucker, a CAM engineer at P.D. Circuits. Read about what really happens to your design when front-end engineering gets hold of it.
October
Mentor Graphics acquired Flomerics, a British maker of thermal simulation software and other engineering fluid dynamics tools. The price was about $60 million, but Mentor already owned more than 20% of Flomerics. Former Flomerics CEO Gary Carter took over as head of Mentor's new Mechanical Analysis Division.
Altium posted a revenue increase for fiscal Q1 2009. The company also selected China's largest IT products distributor, Digital China, as a key distributor for Altium's design solutions. Altium's sales in China grew 75% in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008.
The EDA Consortium announced that EDA industry revenue for Q2 2008 declined 3.7% compared to the previous Q2. But surprisingly, PCB/MCM revenue increased 19.3% over the Q2 2007.
Michael Fister resigned as president, CEO and a director at Cadence. Also leaving: Kevin Bushby, Executive Vice President - Worldwide Field Operations; James S. Miller Jr., Executive Vice President - Products and Technologies Organization; William Porter, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer; and R.L. Smith McKeithen, Executive Vice President - Corporate Affairs.
Optimum Design Associates, a Mentor Expedition service bureau in Pleasanton, California acquired RockSolid Design, a Cadence Allegro shop in Mountain View. President Nick Barbin half-jokingly called this new group a "dream team," able to take on both Expedition and Allegro customers now. Nick spoke with me for the Shaughnessy Report.
The PCB design bureau Stilwell-Baker opened a new design facility in Vancouver, Washington. The 3,000 square-foot design center will be Stilwell Baker's core location for DFM and component engineering.
November
DownStream Technologies introduced BluePrint-4-PADS, a rev of BluePrint-PCB targeted at designers using Mentor's PADS layout tool.
Cadence announced plans to cut at least 625 full-time positions, or 12% of its global employee base, and a number of contractors and consultants. The company said its restructuring plan would save $150 million in operating expenses. Cadence soon announced that it would file its quarterly report late for Q3. The company also released ActiveParts Portal, which expanded its ActiveParts online component data solution.
PCB Matrix released the IPC LP Calculator as a free replacement for the IPC-7351 Viewer. New features for the IPC LP Calculator include Web links to manufacturers' data sheets and availability in four measurement units.
The SMART Group, on behalf of the Electronics Knowledge Transfer Network, held a two-day seminar in the U.K during Technology World08. "Technology Breakthroughs - Bending the Design Rules" featured speakers Joe Fjelstad; Thomas Ahrens of Fraunhofer Institute; Dr. Craig Hillman of DfR Solutions; David Pedder of TWI; and Markys Cain of NPL. Hillman's talk focused on avoiding common mistakes made by PCB designers when designing for reliability, and he was happy to share his insights with the Shaughnessy Report.
Zuken held its Z-DAC users group conference in Long Beach, drawing the highest number of attendees ever to the American event. Design007 was there, shooting interviews with Zuken managers and customers. Zuken also announced the December release of CADSTAR 11. This release features new functions that benefit front-end engineering development teams, as well as Zuken's Dragon Router.
AWR posted record revenues for the first half of fiscal 2009, and announced that it has formally changed its name from Applied Wave Research. The company also inked an agreement with test equipment company Rohde & Schwarz to expand AWR's presence in Japan.
December
Trilogy Circuits, a provider of PCB design and assembly services in Richardson, Texas, was named one of the fastest-growing companies in metro Dallas. The Dallas 100 Awards recognized Trilogy as the 57th fastest-growing company in the Dallas area. The award - Trilogy's first - reflects significant growth in sales during a three-year period.
Altium launched the winter 2009 release of Altium Designer, which includes faster 3D real-time design performance. The company published a set of benchmarks for 3D design performance with Altium Designer. Also, Altium introduced live links from Altium Designer to the databases of component suppliers, beginning with Digi-Key. This permits designers to consider cost and availability while searching online supplier databases.
Cadence finished its accounting investigation and posted a Q3 net loss of $169 million.
AWR announced plans to expand its sales forces in Asia through its relationship with Rohde & Schwarz and Beijing-based ViRe Technologies.
Zuken said it is developing a product called Zuken PDM Adapter that will provide an interface between the CR-5000 design solution and third-party enterprise PDM systems. The firm plans extend its product portfolio to the entire product data management area.
DesignCon 2009 is a little over a month away, and Design007 will be there filming another Real Time With...DesignCon event. Happy Holden, Bruce Archambeault and Istvan Novak are just a few of the industry icons speaking at DesignCon 2009, so don't miss it.
January 2009?
I wish I could predict the future. But I do know that we're all lucky to work in an industry that we love.
Have a Happy New Year.