Printed Circuit Design & Fab - November 2007 - (Page 32)

DESIGN TOOLS ECAD-MCAD Design Integration As design disciplines converge, the ability to display, exchange and work in 3D will become an essential part of the electronic product development process. by ROB EVANS In today’s global market, the pressure to create smaller, more intelligent products in less time is forcing design engineers to critically reassess and revise the overall product design process – from concept right through to manufacture. The need for change is further fueled by the rapid development of electronics technology, which in a series of evolutionary steps has altered the fundamental processes we use to create today’s electronic products. The emerging challenge for product development teams is managing and working with these increasingly interdependent processes while meeting production deadlines. As electronic products and the processes used to create them evolve, the fundamentally dissimilar worlds of electronic and mechanical design need to work in harmony. To stay competitive in today’s market, designers must adopt systems that unify the design process and allow the smooth flow of design data across the electromechanical divide (FIGURE 1). Electronics design, however, is typically viewed as a set of disparate design disciplines; each requiring their own design environments -- hardware design, programmable logic design and software development. This divisive approach hampers efficient collaboration with the wider product development process. Unifying electronic design, however, creates the environment required for true design interaction and collaboration in all stages of electronic design flow. By incorporating the processes needed in a single application, a unified electronic development system shares design data at a native level and manages design information globally. The seamless flow of information between design stages opens the door to flexible, interactive and innovative design practices that support a fluid division between hardware and software. The efficiencies and high level of design collaboration delivered by a unified electronic product development system extend to all levels of the design flow – from concept though to manufacture. The central control of design information and data allows all those involved in the product develop32 ment process to work in a connected and collaborative way, all the way through to document handling, parts management and manufacturing. In the bigger picture, the need for effective design collaboration extends to those outside the immediate sphere of electronic design. An increasingly important part of the evolution in product development is interaction between the electronic and mechanical aspects of a design, where the incessant need for smaller and more functional packaging forces the two to be intimately connected – in both a physical sense and in development. Board assemblies now typically hold all of the external hardware such as connectors, keypads and displays, while the product case assembly neatly exposes these to the user. Gone are the days when a product case merely housed the electronic assemblies and the separate hardware elements were connected via interwiring. In short, packaging has now moved from being a simple container to a tightly integrated part of the product. Converging MCAD-ECAD Design More than ever before, a product’s packaging must take into account the physical aspects of the internal electronics while, in turn, the electronics assembly – in practice the board design – must allow for the physical style and functionality of the package design. This increased interdependency of design processes is in line with the overall trend in electronic product development where previously isolated stages in the design flow must now efficiently interact. From design capture through to manufacturing, maintaining a competitive edge in the market requires tools and processes that support collaboration at all levels of development. Efficiently bridging the gap between the mechanical and electronic design processes is, therefore, becoming crucial for collaborative and successful product development. However, rather than simply passing raw dimensioning and positional NOVEMBER 2007 PRINTED CIRCUIT DESIGN & FAB

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Printed Circuit Design & Fab - November 2007 Contents Our Line Market Watch Around the World Happenings ROI Packaging HDI Design and Fab Plating Design Tools Metric Design Productronica Product Preview Marketplace Ad Index The Signal Doctor

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - November 2007

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