John Isaac's Blog
John Isaac's Blog RSSUsing Virtual Prototyping versus Physical Prototyping
On our “Best-In_Class” web site, we talk about 6 practices that have enabled electronics companies to achieve their agressive business goals and obtain best-in-class status. In my last blog, I talked about how they enable Concurrency in the design process. By turning serial processes into parallel, this not only had the affect of reducing time to market but also could improve product quality and designer productivity.
The next of the 6 best practices is “Virtual Prototyping“. Here we are replacing the need to build and test hardware (physical) prototypes with the extensive use of simulation and analysis during the design process. Virtual has several advantages over physical. First of all, building and testing a multiple pieces of hardware is a time consuming and expensive process. Second, you do not get to try several design scenarios looking for the best product options for performance, integrity and reliability. Third, the physical testing may not highlight all of the possible errors in the design. For example, testing for vibration failures in a “shake and bake” chamber may take months and longer-term reliability problems not show up yet.
Typical virtual prototyping software covers a variety of performance, reliability and manufacturability domains:
- Signal integrity and delay analysis
- Power distribution network integrity for both AC and DC
- Analog and mixed signal integrity
- Heat management at the PCB and full enclosure levels
- Vibration and shock simulation for reliabiltiy
- Design for manufacturability (failures and higher yields) and high reliability
Virtual prototyping may require a change in how your company develops a product. It typically takes longer to get that first piece of product hardware in the lab. The designer may spend a lot of time running various simulations and analyses throughout the design process and resist the temptation to gets something physical in hand. But in the long run, the product will get to the market faster and usually with better performance and reliability. Take a look at a few of the designer videos and quotes on the web site and see if what they say can relate to your situation as you design your next product.
Tags: collaboration, Expedition, expedition enterprise, flotherm, HALT, Hyperlynx, power_integrity, reliability, signal_integrity, thermal analysis
Best-in-class companies use design concurrency
My blog 2 weeks ago spoke about how companies achieve best in class status thru the use of 6 basic practices. These are highlighted on the web site as enablers for companies to meet their aggessive business goals. The first one was “Design Flow Concurrency”. This is the practice of having multiple designers able to work on the same task simultaneously as well as having multiple tasks perfromed concurrently.
Some areas where simultaneous design can be practiced include:
- Multiple engineers doing schematic entry
- Multiple engineers and CAD designers doing constraint entry
- Multiple designers doing layout using Mentor’s Xtreme technology
- The ability for digital, RF and analog designers to layout and simulate on the same PCB
- The ability for the team to design the FPGAs and PCB concurrently
True, integrated concurrent design means enabling multidiscipline teams across the enterprise and supply chain to engage in open, visible concurrent design, without database partitioning. Designers can observe other team members’ changes in real time, staying aware of how the final requirements of the design will be impacted. This type of collaboration does more than just optimize and streamline product development—it also leads to new opportunities and efficiencies being uncovered and capitalized on during the design process.
There are some webinars and videos you might be interested in to learn haw these practices can be applied in your company.
Tags: Concurrent design, design concurrency, expedition enterprise, PCB design
Don’t miss out – Technology Leadership Awards contest
A few weeks ago we announced the 2011 TLA contest and the entries are coming to us from all over the world. If you have not entered yet, you, your company and your design team may be missing an opportuntiy to be recognized as one of the top PCB design innovators in the world. Entering is an easy process and if you need help, just contact your local Mentor sales rep or AE. They will be more than happy to help you.
Tags: Board_Station, expedition_enterprise, PADS, pcb_design, technology_leadership_awards
Is your company Best-in-Class?
In many of our presentations and articles we refer to the Aberdeen survey report that took 536 company executive inputs, choose the top 20% who were successfully meeting their business goals, and identified common best practices that enabled these “best-in-class” to achieve those goals.
We took those best practices and have created a web site that further details them as well as points to some user videos and webinars where these companies speak about their succcess. These 6 best practices are:
- Employing Concurrency into the design process
- Using extensive Virtual Prototyping versus physical prototyping
- Speeding time to market and reducing cost with complete Design-through- Manufacturing support
- Designing Complex products without suffering productivity loss
- Enabling multi-disciplined design teams to Collaborate
- Having the ability to create, control and access Intellectual Property across the enterprise
Take a look at this web site. Maybe your company is already best-in-class. Maybe you, as a designer or executive, could improve the competitiveness of your company. Its worth a look.
Tags: collaboration, concurrency, expedition_enterprise, IP_management, pcb_design, virtual_prototyping
Its Technology Leadership Awards Contest Time!
Its that time of the year when we announce our TLA program (the 23rd running year) and start to accept entries from design teams around the world. Just in case you are not familiar with this program, its one we put in place to recognize the innovative ways PCB designers overcome challenges in design with advanced technologies to produce the world’s most competitive electronic products. Each year, users of PADS, Board Station and Expedition Enterprise send in entries in one of six industry categories. These entries are judged by a panel of independent PCB industry experts, the results tallied, and winners announced with a worldwide webcase and public press announcement.
We have really made the data part of the entry process automated and easy. However, a lot of credit to your entry will be the words you add describing the challenges and how your overcame them. So please don’t forget that part of the entry form. Getting a first or second place in your industry category is a real accomplishment as you are competing against the world’s best. However, we find that the recognition of you and your team is not only a personal career booster but also helps your organization by showing how efficient and advanced it is in the electronics industry.
So go check it out on the TLA entry page. Listen to the video by the judges. And get your entry submitted by September 30th. You may just be the one recognized by the industry and your management.
Tags: Board_Station, expedition_enterprise, PADS, PCB design, Technology_Leadership, TLA
Why PCB Design Matters to the Executive
The Aberdeen Group conducted a survey of 536 electronics company management types to determine what business results (time-to-market, product cost and competitiveness, quality, … ) qualified them as “Best-in-Class” status. They then matched those BiC companies with common PCB design best practices that they had identified to help bring them to that status.
Highlighted as the 3 top best practices were:
1) Infrastructure systems such as data management and inter-designer communication that enables concurrency and collaboration across the design team members.
2) The extensive use of virtual prototyping such as signal integrity and thermal analysis.
3) The implementation of a Design-for-Manufacturing (DFM) strategy during the design process.
Aberdeen then followed up the survey with a offer for management to take a self assessment that compares their business results and design practices with those of the BiC. So far many hundreds of electronics companies worldwide have capitalized on this offer. The bottom line is that the PCB is where many companies add the most value to thier products and the ability to design that PCB quickly, at low cost and using the latest technology can mean the difference between a profitable product and not.
Tags: collaboration, design concurrency, DFM, Expedition, PCB design, signal integrity, thermal analysis
PCB Market Share – Who cares?
Each year Gary Smith EDA research group publishes the previous year’s revenues and market share for all the EDA suppliers. In 2010 they published the PCB Systems Design market share for 2009 which showed that Mentor had again gained at the expense of their competitors. This has been the trend for several years as shown in the following graph of DataQuest’s and Gary’s last 10 years of coverage.
So who should care that Mentor is gaining share other than Mentor? Actually to answer this we first have to look backward and determine why we have gained. It has come down to the large and steady investments in R&D and strategic acquisitions that Mentor has made which, in turn, have delivered advanced design technology to our customers. Probably more investment than all our major competitors combined. The electronics industry is highly competitive and companies need the best solutions to deliver products on time and at reduced costs. More users have adopted our flows, switching from our competitors, thus driving up Mentor’s revenues and market share.
Looking forward who should care? Again, our customers. As Mentor continues to increase our PCB revenues, we can afford to continue to make investments in both R&D and select acquisitions. This cycle will bring needed technologies to our customers as they compete. So this cycle is not only improtant to Mentor but more important to our customers and we have no intent to stop this positive trend.
Tags: EDA business, Expedition, Hyperlynx, Market share, PCB design
Technology Leadership Awards Contest, You could win!
We have just announced our 22nd annual TLA contest. This is a Mentor program that recognizes PCB design teams for their innovative talents in overcoming today’s most challenging design problems. Last year we had entries from electronics companies, large and small, from 17 countries around the world and announced winners in 6 categories plus an overall. And we had winners from all three design systems: PADS, Board Station and Expedition Enterprise.
Being chosen as a winner by our industry expert and independent panel of judges can mean worldwide recognition for your company and the design team. We will announce the winners this fall in a worldwide webcast and if you desire, have on-site presentation ceremonies where you can invite your executive management. So I encourage you to enter at www.mentor.com/go/tla where you will find directions and hints as to what the judges look for in a winning entry. It is an easy process and if you need help, contact your local Mentor Application Engineer.
Tags: Board Station, Expedition, john isaac, PADS, PCB design, technology leadership, TLA
vSure, For Sure
A few weeks ago we annouced release 9 of the vSure design for manufactuability (DFM) product. Press Release. This product came to us via the Valor acquisition and is used in many competitive design environments as well as Mentor’s Expedition and Board Station. We have an on-demand webinar about it on the web site.
My original thought was that this type of pre-manufacturing NPI product really only applied to the consumer marketplace where getting the product to high yields, high volume production quickly could mean the difference between profit and loss. Around the time of the press release, I was in Moscow presenting at a seminar and had a DFM session. Much to my surprise, this subject was of great interest to the Russian audience where you would imagine that consumer type products were not the norm. However, even for their lower volume products, getting it right the first time from a manufactuability point of view is very important. It illustrated to me that industry trends and business needs continue to evolve and industries we once thought of as affording long design times and not cost sensitive (military, networking, aerospace, industrial,..) are now concerned with cost, competition, and time-to-market.
Tags: design for manufacture, DFM, Expedition, john isaac, NPI, PCB Manufacturing, Valor, vsure
Editors ask good questions. It’s their job!
I just got back from 2 tradeshows where I spent mucho time with editors, all interested in Mentor’s recent acquisition of Valor. APEX in Las Vegas (not bad duty) and NEPCON in Shanghai (looong trip!). Most had looked at our valor information web site page www.mentor.com/valor but had some additional questions which seemed to run in a common track. Maybe you have the same questions so let me discuss:
“Will Mentor continue to serve customers that use non-Mentor PCB design systems with the Valor DFM products?” – The answer is YES. Basically it makes pure economic sense for Mentor. These DFM products are present in many electronics companies and bring in a nice revenue stream. From a pure revenue point of view, Mentor would be foolish to cut this off.
“Will ODB++ be maintained as an open standard for transfer of design data from design to manufacturing?” Again, YES. In fact it is our plan to further enhance this standard and make it even more intelligent so it can pass even better data to manufacturing. This will enable mfg. to make more knowledgeable decisions as to what they can and can’t do to make a design get to target volume production levels quicker.
Next common question: “What are you showing at the show?’ Since these were manufacturing focused shows, we showed the valor MSS product suite that addresses the manufacturing floor. Planning and optimization of the line. Monitoring of the line to insure smooth operation and materials availability. Tracing products through the line and finally gathering quality information for production corrections.
If you want to know more, go to our /valor page. Soon we will be broadcasting a couple of webinars that talk about some new stuff into both the PCB design and PCB manufacturing domains.
Tags: design for manufacturing, DFM, MES, MSS, ODB++, PCB design, Valor
About John Isaac's Blog
Latest Posts
- Using Virtual Prototyping versus Physical Prototyping
- Best-in-class companies use design concurrency
- Don’t miss out – Technology Leadership Awards contest
- Is your company Best-in-Class?
- Its Technology Leadership Awards Contest Time!
- Why PCB Design Matters to the Executive