Printed Circuit Design & Fab - December 2008 - (Page 30)

DESIGN BaSicS information can be accessed easily and at the right time. In practice, there’s too much temptation to bypass an overly complex or cumbersome system, and relevant information must be available at designers’ fingertips–as key design decisions are being made (FiGurE 2). To achieve these aims, design management systems need to be accessible to designers from within their working environment. Along with access to centralized libraries, the design system itself needs to support direct interfaces to the version control system being used by an organization. Designers can then retrieve and submit design data directly from within their normal design space, which encourages rigorous data management practices and streamlines the design file management process. Perhaps most important, however, relevant design information is then easily available ‘at call’. As a result, designers can make informed and correct choices at critical times, such as at the beginning of the design process where decisions have a profound effect. Data management then becomes an inherent part of the creative design process, where it is most effective. In a unified design system, this immediate access to key design information is then available to all designers and downstream users via one design environment. Design reuse and true collaborative design become practical thanks to the single source of design data and to each designer’s direct access to version control systems. Procurement, manufacturing, documentation, mechanical design, marketing and distribution all reach into that single source of design data, helping to bring products to market in less time and within budget. The significant change with this approach is that design data management becomes an integral part of the design environment, and therefore, a process that works with designers rather than one that works against them. In the final analysis, the most brilliant design will not reach the market within budget or on time (maybe not at all) if the data management processes fail by allowing incorrect or corrupt design data to propagate throughout the process. When the design data and its management are simplified and readily accessible to all those involved in the product development workflow, the risks and the cost of design data errors become clearer, easily predictable and more manageable. Because designers also have accurate and relevant design data on hand, they can easily make informed decisions and refocus on what they do best: creating innovative electronics designs that will clearly differentiate a product in the market. pCd&f FiGurE 2. Bringing design data management into the design process allows designers to make informed and correct choices at the beginning of the product development process. a design system that brings together all of the electronic design processes into one unified environment, where the design data can exist as a single entity. In this way, schematic capture, PCB layout, embedded system development and manufacturing output all use the same data during the product development process. Importantly, the design management system only needs to access and to track one source of coherent data. Whether a company uses a commercial PLM system or simpler enterprise systems, a single pool of related design data is much easier and simpler to manage. From an immediate and practical perspective, a unified system means that all of the design domains use the same component data model sourced, for example, from the same component library. ‘IC10’ in the schematic uses the same data set as ‘IC10’ in the PCB layout or BoM. The libraries can be managed as a single, centralized resource, so library data inconsistencies and duplication are eliminated. The single library source approach also offers the potential of expanding the data content by adding procurement and assembly information. When parts are placed from the centralized database library, designers then have access to component parameters that will streamline the manufacturing process. Any parts with long lead times will be flagged to avoid manufacturing delays, and BoMs can be generated from the live database information to ensure accurate project costing. As the centralized data pool relates to a single unified design system, version control becomes equally as easy to implement. The design files are accessed by the same application and offer format consistency, making the version control system simpler to set up and to manage. The design system can be extended with back-end collaboration servers and plug-in modules that target specific enterprise applications. If a company is confident that a full PLM system is justified, its implementation will be simpler because of the single design data set containing all relevant information. Data Management At The Design Level Regardless of how advanced or potentially effective an imposed data management system is, the process will ultimately fail if the user interface is ineffective. This is the interactive connection between a designer and the data management system, and its success will determine if 30 roB EvanS is in technical marketing with altium limited and can be reached at rob.evans@altium.com. DECEMBER 2008 printEd CirCuit dESign & fAB

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Printed Circuit Design & Fab - December 2008

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - December 2008 Contents Our Line Market Watch Around the World Happenings ROI Global Sourcing EMC for the Real World Interconnect Strategies On the Forefront Final Finish Forum Test and Inspection Electronic System Design Data Management 101 Designers Take on Technology Challenges in 2008 PCB Signal Integrity, Power Integrity and EMC Challenges What’s in a Name? Ad Index PCB Dielectric Materials for High-Speed Applications Off the Shelf Marketplace BGA Bulletin

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - December 2008

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