PCB News - PCB investigation: heat, EMC and SI conflict with each other

According to a survey of 91 PCB design engineers conducted by virtual prototype provider Flomerics, most interviewees believe that in circuit board design, thermal and electromagnetic compatibility (Electromagnetic Compatibility), EMC) and signal integrity (signal integrity, SI) issues often conflict with each other.

Flomerics said that 59% of the respondents in the survey agreed that heat dissipation and EMC requirements usually conflict with each other in circuit board design; but 23% disagreed. And 60% believe that the requirements for heat dissipation and signal integrity conflict with each other, and 23% oppose it.

In addition, the Flomerics survey describes the actual situation of the communication and cooperation between electronic and mechanical design engineers in a company. In the survey, 64% of the respondents think the communication between the two is "good" or "very good"; 31% of the respondents think "needs improvement"; only 4% think "very bad" .

And 56% of the respondents believe that a more complete interface between electronic and mechanical software can greatly improve the cooperation between electronic design engineers and mechanical design engineers, while 28% of the respondents said that software is not a problem, good The management, interpersonal relationship and other factors are more important.

The Flomerics survey also asked respondents about the proportion of new designs that are overtime and over budget, and the most common reasons for the above phenomenon. Among them, 50% of the respondents said that 10% to 30% of new designs will be overtime and over budget. ; And 28% of the respondents said that this ratio is only 10%; 18% of the people said that this ratio is 30% to 50%, and only 4% of the respondents think that this ratio is more than 50%.

Flomerics pointed out that according to the survey (respondents can check), the most common reasons for overtime and over budget include: design requirements changes (59%); circuit design (39%); thermal problems (34%); EMC problems (32%) ); signal integrity problems (30%); physical wiring problems (22%); and wiring problems (19%).

50% of respondents said that the average design cycle for a new circuit board design from concept to final test and manufacturing, and output is 6 to 12 weeks. Flomerics revealed that 29% said that the average design cycle was more than 12 weeks, while 21% Of people said it was shorter than 6 weeks.

When asked the question "What is the biggest pressure on PCB engineering?" 54% of respondents think it is "functionality and performance", and 30% say it is "time to market". And 14% of respondents think it is "cost"; when asked about the design process, 62% of the respondents said that in the design stage, the concept design (concept design), detailed design (detailed design), design verification There are many interactions between (design verification) and so on, and 38% of the people said that the interaction between the various stages of the design process sequence execution is very small.

And 61% of the interviewees said that there is a dedicated person or a special group that is specifically responsible for the thermal design of the circuit board, while 39% said that there is no such person or group.

The results of the survey came from 91 respondents who submitted the questionnaire.