System Codesign

Early use of design for manufacturing can capture PCB yield issues related to pads, copper distribution, same net slivers and more

MCAD integration provides the means for designers to test the mechanical compatibility of a PCB design – for cooling performance as well as whether the layout will fit into an enclosure without problems.

In today’s competitive market place, companies must find new ways to differentiate their products. In response, many companies are turning to electronics to enable new innovative features. As a result, electronics have become even more critical to the product development process. In fact, electronics have become so important, research shows that a focus on the [...]

Floorplanning informed by thermal analysis can significantly improve PCB layouts, writes Robin Bornoff The number of PCB design constraints seems ever increasing. The risk that a design will fail either functional performance or reliability goals grows for each generation. One increasingly popular trade-off addresses a balance between thermal compliance and signal integrity. Components with high [...]

Clive ‘Max’ Maxfield reviews how the evolution of board design is driving a tighter integration with production’s demands The good old days Board design has changed a lot since I started working in electronics. My first job in 1980 was on a team designing CPUs for mainframe computers. My employer fit the traditional OEM model [...]

New tools and standards encourage communication between the electrical and mechanical domains, says Pawel Chadzynski. Most major electronics companies have separate electrical (ECAD) and mechanical (MCAD) design organizations. Efficient collaboration between these teams throughout the PCB design process can significantly reduce cycle times, lower the risk of re-spins, and improve quality. The first challenge to [...]

In May 2008, the ProSTEP iViP Association released an agreed data schema and communication protocol to enhance collaboration between electrical and mechanical CAD tools (ProSTEP iViP Recommendation ECAD/MCAD, PSI 5). The article sets out the need for the new standards and how they deliver greater design efficiencies than existing technologies, such as the IDF data [...]