PCB News - Do PCB board design and layout at lower cost

One of the main trends in PCB board design is to gradually develop towards open source hardware models and control systems. Another major trend is the explosive growth of development boards. Printed circuit board design tools are being applied to more and more development board designs. This article will tell you how the industry has achieved low-cost printed circuit board design and layout in the past 25 years.

As PCB board design is more and more commonly used in existing development boards, and daughter boards are used to drive hydraulic devices and servo motors or perform tasks based on light, motion and sound, the trend of printed circuit board design gradually tends to open source hardware models and Control System.

Another major trend in PCB board design is the explosive growth of development boards. In October 2013, a survey was conducted on PCB designers from all over the world, including professional engineers from 42 different countries.

The survey results show that nearly two-thirds of the respondents (64%) believe that development boards have reduced their demand for custom PCB board design to a certain extent. On the surface, this result threatens the development of PCB board design, but the actual situation is that printed circuit board design tools are being used by more and more development board designs. PCB board design

However, since its inception, the design of printed circuit boards has not undergone fundamental changes. Innovative technologies in the field of PCB board design have been focused on reducing the cost of development boards and shortening development time, but the printed circuit board layout has remained basically the same, only changing the components and product performance used-this is also the root of most design complexity reason.

In the face of fierce competition, shortening the product design cycle is crucial for engineers and managers. One of the most concerned issues of many companies is: How do engineers obtain development tools that can shorten the time to market and reduce design costs, so as to cope with the increasingly complex PCB board design. The design cycle plays a decisive role in the time the product is put on the market, and the printed circuit board layout is often used to compensate for delays in the initial design process. In addition, since manufacturers’ workplaces and design teams are distributed all over the world, it is not difficult to imagine how difficult it is to obtain the best development tools, which makes multiple design teams and time to market challenging.

To meet these challenges, PCB manufacturers urgently need development tools that can utilize existing resources, including human and computer tools that allow interoperability. These development tools are simple to use, extensible, and can be connected to other time-consuming design phases in the design process. The performance of PCB board design tools often mentioned by engineers include:

Provide an undefined progressive learning curve> "Without sacrificing productivity, multiple designers can be arranged in the same project."

Provide an ideal plug-and-play mode for intensive tasks to increase productivity and support real-time collaboration among users all over the world

At each stage of the design process, multidisciplinary technical experts can be mobilized for development and design without sacrificing production capacity.

Some products in the high-end market of the electronics industry can be used to analyze the actual design of the designer, the internal working method of the chip, and the reaction of the chip to its peripheral products. For engineers, the question is how they can reach this step with the least effort and the least mistakes...without any luck.

Although there are a large number of commercial products on the market (most of them are very expensive, very expensive), but only a few products are affordable... They not only combine powerful functions, but also provide a very low start-up license cost. Product availability and other features are becoming more and more important, which can effectively accelerate complex designs and reduce the initial cost of the design.

The survey also investigated the factors that engineers prioritize when choosing PCB board design software, such as price, features, ease of use, service support, etc. The survey results clearly show that most design engineers pay more attention to function rather than price when buying design tools, and 60% of respondents believe that function is an "extremely important" factor. It has been providing users with super-functional products, but each generation of software products has become increasingly difficult to meet the needs of users. What engineers need is a software product that not only optimizes design time, but also creates more innovation and testing time for them.

EAGLE is loved by engineers all over the world and is widely used in the development of various collaborative projects from open source hardware, including electric vehicles, formula racing, nano-satellites, commercial moonwalks and other projects. The secret of Eagle's success is that it is not only suitable for beginners, but also meets the needs of advanced users. It can provide them with a variety of options, thereby greatly reducing the design and testing process time.

The market provides a large number of completely free development tools for Linux, Mac and Windows. When cost savings are needed, what is the basis for engineers to purchase development tools?

Support function expansion

Specifically, simulation, data input and output, and custom commands are executed through a user language program (ULP). Eagle users have been working hard to achieve breakthrough innovations and improve the versatility of the software by using hundreds of ULPs. For example, the newly introduced EAGLEUp3D design converter enables engineers to export 2D layout drawings from Eagle and import them into Google SketchUp to create accurate 3D prototype simulation drawings. This enables users to integrate multiple circuit boards into the same model, allowing them to detect "collision" between misaligned connectors and large-size components, while also allowing them to measure airflow around the device and test and Availability of installation points. These are particularly useful in design sharing and development and reassessing system-level issues. Eagle can also import mechanical format data from other manufacturers and provide all source codes. The ULP structure enables users to further build custom designs on the basis of existing designs to meet specific design requirements.

Speed up the design cycle

Engineers usually place components on the circuit board, then load the schematic and place it on the printed circuit board to simulate its behavior. The recent series of functional improvements in CadSoftEAGLE6.4 make it easy for engineers to use underwear's high-performance SPICE simulator-LT-SPICE, schematic input tools and waveform display. Users can now simulate existing EAGLE schematics and automatically convert from EAGLE.

Get a quick quote or a smoother design chain

Although engineers have set the material cost in line with the project budget and schedule, and are ready to start manufacturing printed circuit boards, they usually need to issue the material cost first and then wait for a decision. Therefore, engineers urgently need to obtain special tools from reliable and high-quality service partners in order to quickly obtain quotations for small-batch printed circuit board manufacturing and obtain rapid prototyping services.

Large component library

This is critical to productivity, because it is impossible for users to "design custom components" for every component they plan to add to the circuit. EAGLE itself has created a variety of component libraries, and users can also obtain component libraries directly provided by manufacturers or shared by users through the electronic alliance community. Since it takes 20 minutes to create a small customized database for each component from scratch, if the component library can provide engineers with a reliable and rich information resource center and be verified by active community members, this will greatly help engineers design .

In order to simplify and speed up the PCB design process, electronic design engineers can also use DesignLink as a functional tool to specify the required components. By setting parameters, you can quickly search for suitable components from e-alliance's online product database. In addition, engineers can get a lot of technical information about component products, including technical manuals, links to specific application solution guides, pricing, and time to market. This can be obtained in the EAGLE design environment without skipping multiple web pages.