Printed Circuit Design & Fab - May 2008 - (Page 28)

FROM THE FIELD tronics companies today. We as PCB systems design tool suppliers will continue to incrementally improve the productivity of the designer. This will help, but enabling concurrent collaboration within PCB layout, across the different disciplines within electronic design (engineer, designer, RF specialist, high speed or EMI guru, thermal management, etc.), across the multiple disciplines in product design (e.g., ECAD with MCAD), and between ECAD and the rest of the enterprise (e.g., procurement, manufacturing) can result in quantum improvements in process efficiency, time-tomarket and time-to-manufacturing–volume (profit). Mentor has many of these capabilities at this time and is developing several more. These collaboration and concurrent design tools are being readily adopted by companies today. For instance, Alcatel Shanghai Bell reported to us that they were able to cut their PCB board design time from 13 to 5 weeks by using our XtremePCB product. XtremePCB enabled them to assign up to 5 engineers to perform placement and routing on a very complex board simultaneously. PCD&F: Is remote collaboration being used to anywhere near its full extent? If not, what are the roadblocks to more widespread adaptation? Potts: We see some global companies capitalizing on dispersed and specialized designers to design boards simultaneously and thus turn a serial process into a parallel one. For example, some companies have designers that specialize in digital, others in analog or RF. With our Xtreme technology, these designers can operate over a WAN network just like they were sitting in the same room and perform the design on the same PCB database simultaneously. PCD&F: Over the past 3-5 years, the design community has struggled to integrate RoHS compliance into its vocabulary – and it appears that this challenge is behind us. What do you see as the next big challenge for designers looking out 18 to 36 months? What changes will be needed to meet these challenges? Potts: The most obvious challenge is meeting the extremely aggressive business drivers that most electronics companies are facing to compete and stay profitable. We hear goals from our customers – such as a 50% reduction in design cycle times, 30% increase in productivity – all while creating the most innovative, lowest cost competitive products to the marketplace, quicker. Some of this can be enabled with better design and collaboration tools as we have discussed. Some will require the use of advanced PCB fabrication technologies such as HDI, embedded, system-in-package, and high-speed into the multi-GHz. So the challenges are multifaceted. The use of new tools and technologies will require adaptation and learning of new skills. But perhaps the most radical challenge will be the breaking down of organizational boundaries required to implement enterprise wide collaboration. No more over-the-wall communication and paper trail negotiations. Real-time communication, bidirectional design change negotiations and management, 28 and total supply chain involvement will be the norms. PCD&F: Tell me a bit about the Mentor roadmap for PCB design tools looking out to 2015. Potts: I think we’ve talked about some of these already but basically our strategy is in three areas. One is continuing to improve the productivity of the engineer and designer as they use the most advanced technologies. Another is to extend beyond PCB design and provide an ever-increasing collaboration capability across the entire enterprise, involving all disciplines and organizations. A third, which we have not spoken about, is to create a much tighter design-to-manufacturing loop. This comes in two forms. One is to better reflect the knowledge gained in manufacturing back into the design process, so OEMs can improve their profitability by first pass higher yields and faster time-to-volume. The second way is to provide tools that address the design-to-manufacturing handoff with design for test, assembly, fabrication, documentation, etc. with target manufacturer analysis and verification. PCD&F: How is Mentor differentiating itself and its products from those of its competitors – and how successful would you say Mentor has been in this regard? Potts: PCB systems design is a prime Mentor business focus and this has enabled us to invest our R&D resources at two times to four times the rate of our nearest competitor. Investment at this high rate has enabled us to provide innovative technologies such as Xtreme, our topology planner and router, our high-speed analysis and verification, our design and library management, our analog, thermal and EMI analysis, our FPGA/PCB co-design and many others that differentiate us. Now in addition to PCB design we are expanding into the enterprise-wide collaboration capabilities. Electronics companies recognize how they can achieve their business goals now and in the future as we continue to invest. Our ever-increasing customer list and our worldwide PCB design market share leadership proves that we are meeting the demands of the industry. PCD&F HENRY POTTS joined Mentor Graphics in March of 1999 as vice president and general manager of the Systems Design Division. Potts brings more than 33 years of experience in the electronics industry to his role at Mentor Graphics, including experience in IC & systems development, and serving as president and CEO of a venture capital funded startup. He served as a senior vice president for Hitachi Semiconductor, where he oversaw all marketing and product development activities for microprocessor and embedded products for the US markets. He has also held senior management positions at Motorola, VLSI Technology, Schlumberger and Texas Instruments. Potts has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Southwestern Louisiana. MAY 2008 PRINTED CIRCUIT DESIGN & FAB

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

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - May 2008 Contents Our Line Market Watch Around the World Happenings ROI EMC For the Real World PCB East Conference Brochure Positive Plating Don't Let your Signals Stub Their Toes Improve PCB Layout With Skill Utility Programs The Next Generation Design Tool Challenge Thermally Conductive Microwave Materials PCB Dielectric Degradation in Lead-Free Assembly Applications A Tale of Two Trade Shows Eliminating Board Defects Off the Shelf Marketplace Ad Index BGA Bulletin

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - May 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.