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Better Never Than Late
July 21, 2010 |Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
In the electronics industry, there is a lot of truth to the saying, "Better never than late." If you don't beat your competition to market with your product, they may capture all the demand and you will never reach your target volumes. Likewise, the same will happen if there is a definite market window and it is missed...like the latest gaming gadget that you target for Christmas sales in November and it finally arrives in January. The majority of the responsibility for delivering a product on time falls on those designing and manufacturing it and certain processes and supporting software exist that can make an aggressive schedule become a reality. Many of these capabilities were unheard of several years ago, but then technology was not that complex and product developers managed to meet their schedules with productive, yet classical, linear design and manufacturing software products. Today, the game has changed and, without using some of the more advanced capabilities and, perhaps, even changing methodologies and organizational boundaries, success is not guaranteed. So let's look at some of these recent technology advances.Concurrent and Collaborative Design Designing a PCB has typically been a serial process. One engineer at a time enters the schematic and defines rules, such as high speed constraints--one layout person at a time and maybe in multiple shifts. If the team wanted to implement a more concurrent process, they would typically break down the design into pieces. Each designer works on their piece and then, using a manual and error prone process, pieces the design database back together again. This helped shorten design cycle times, but was not optimal and often resulted in wasted resources and quality issues.A design team has many members in different disciplines. They must work concurrently and collaboratively to meet aggressive time to market goals.Recent software advances have improved this process. Now engineers can work concurrently on the same database entering schematics and constraints. As they are working, they can even see each other's edits in real time, set protection barriers, reduce wasted communication efforts and coordinate their efforts to maximize productivity. As well, layout designers now have the capability to work simultaneously on the same PCB design, on the same database, as they are connected on a LAN or WAN network. Again, the capability is real-time with the ability to see each other's edits and even remote mouse movements. Users report that this has reduced their design cycle times by as much as 70% by having four or five people working at the same time on an important board. This functionality can also be applied to mixed disciplined design team members. RF, digital and analog designers can each work on their parts of the board without having to split and rejoin databases.
Much the same philosophy apples to collaboration of the PCB designers with the other disciplines required to fully develop a product. Mechanical, IC, FPGA, supply chain, test and manufacturing all need to be involved in day-to-day decisions that might affect their discipline. Today, paper communication is replaced with electronic where changes can be communicated and negotiated real time.Virtual PrototypingOne significant reduction of product development time can be the result of virtual prototyping during the design process instead of having to manufacture physical prototypes and test them in the lab. Few companies will go to full production without at least one prototype, but having to resolve high speed, thermal, EMI, functional or manufacturability issues using multiple physical prototypes and lab testing can increase product development times by weeks or even months. Design-for-performance capabilities, such as signal integrity and delay simulation, have existed for years and are now being enhanced with power integrity to accommodate the increases in unique voltage and ground levels. Thermal simulations now can analyze both a standalone PCB, as well as the PCBs in the full product enclosure to insure that heat can be properly dissipated. And, just recently, product reliability is being addressed with Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT) software that can simulate years (in hours) of vibration and predict PCB, attachment and component failures. This is again replacing the need to build multiple prototypes and test them for weeks in vibration chambers. These are just a few examples of virtual prototyping that eliminates the need for multiple physical prototypes which could add inordinate time to your design.Design for Manufacturability (DFM)The manufacturability of your product should not be something that occurs just prior to handing the design database to manufacturing, but, rather, DFM should be considered early and throughout the entire design process. Software exists that can check your design for hard errors (product will fail), as well as softer issues that can affect the yields of your fabrication and assembly processes. If you use the same software and the same golden library as will be used by your manufacturer, you are guaranteed that the database you pass will not require re-design to achieve desired yields and get you to target volume production levels quickly.Using the same DFM and Golden Parts Library during the design and manufacturing processes can eliminate the need for redesign and get to target volume production levels faster.Optimizing Manufacturing Processes and ResourcesIt does little good to deliver your design to manufacturing and get a few parts off the line if your real target is thousands and millions. Take the example of the first iPhone. Apple missed hitting full volume production levels causing them to miss pent up demand for the product, losing millions in revenues. So, quickly getting your product into full volume levels and at target costs is critical to your success. Software supporting and optimizing the line; programming the multiple assembly machines; making sure that parts inventories are available and present at the machines when needed; and continuous monitoring of the production line to identify slowdowns, missing parts and machine failures is necessary to make a profitable product. Hopefully, your manufacturer--small or large, mixed or single product--has these capabilities to optimize their line.Better Never Than LateIf you stand a good chance of missing your market window, it is often better not to even waste the time and resources to design and start manufacture of your product. Better to focus those resources on the next product that will meet your schedule. Fortunately, design and manufacturability software has kept up with technology and aggressive schedule needs, but it often requires a change in methodology and even organizational structures.
About the Author
John Isaac is director of market development for the Systems Design division of Mentor Graphics Corporation.