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Hello and welcome to the FPGA Vendor Independence Community!

In working with a variety of design houses, we've seen all kinds of design methodologies being used in the industry, and most designers acknowledge that device neutrality is to their benefit. It helps retain flexibility to switch devices in the future, whether the reason be for a better feature set or better pricing. The advantages are clear, and this community forum is for sharing experiences, expertise, ideas, tips, and tricks on device neutral design and implementation.

Based on what we’ve seen, there are three important components to a device neutral methodology: vendor independent design creation, EDA tools, and vendor neutral IP. Vendor independent design creation typically refers to proper RTL coding styles versus technology dependent module instantiation. Third-party EDA tools are the alternative to design tools offered by the FPGA vendors. Tools provided by FPGA vendors are available but they lock you into the vendors' own design environment. And lastly, there is the choice of IP. FPGA companies offer IP to get you up-and-running, but this makes it difficult to port your design to a different device. Using vendor-independent IP, such as those provided by 3rd party vendors, can be a solution.

A device neutral approach requires consideration of all these elements—but easier said than done! Short-term cost sensitivity, near-term schedule, and designers’ tool preferences can often get in the way. This community is intended to discuss these types of real-world challenges, and we hope it provides a useful forum to share your experiences and learn from others.

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I've recently had a number of conversations, both inside Mentor and with customers, about where they go and look for help. I thought it would be interesting to listen to the people who do use this community do. No doubt the results will be somewhat distorted (if you are reading this, you already use the community!), but is the community your first stop?

 

I'd also be really interested in the reasons. Is the community useful because you don't get a generic answer to a generic question, but an answer tuned to your problem? There are a couple of reasons I'm interested; do our users know about all of the different sources of help, is there something that makes a particular resource useful, can we focus the kind of help we provide to a particular help resource?

 

I'm going to be cheeky and not allow comments on this post, and ask you (very politely) to comment in the poll to try and keep all discussion together.

 

Thank you in advance for taking the time to do this, and here's the link: http://communities.mentor.com/mgcx/poll.jspa?poll=1042

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I am wondering how common it is for PCB designers to have two monitors.  Sometimes when I look at demos of our products, it appears to me that with interaction between dialogs and graphics, it would be a lot easier to just have two monitors, one for the graphics, one for the dialogs.  What kind of setup do you have?  What % of the PCB Designer community do you think have dual monitors?

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Hi all

 

The topic of variants came up in conversations recently and I would like to ask for input on how our users take advantage of variant support in their design and manufacturing flows. There are a number of areas for variant support and I'm interested to hear from anyone who has any input on this.

 

First is with schematic capture, do you use variants in your front end tool and if so in what manner.

 

Then in the layout tool, do you use variants here either to create different fabricated PCBs or a single fabricated PCB with different populations of components. In the latter case, parts would be placed or unplaced in a specific variant or a part would be substituted with a different part without a change in the cell geometry.

 

Then from a manufacturing perspective, do you create a design data kit that is only valid for a single variant or do you combine all variants in a single design data kit and then manage variants within that data set.

 

So I invite anyone to share their experiences with variants, where, why and how they use them.

 

Thanks

 

Mark

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I would have to be the first to admit that this is not the catchiest release name (and yet I feel guilty whenever I consider copying Apple with its big-cat releases, or Ubuntu with its menagerie of release names), but we hope we have delivered a small and focused set of changes that will make things that little bit smoother for our customers and evaluators. You may remember I blogged about this at the time that we received the feedback (VeSys 2.0: The First 30 Minutes), and I am very pleased to announce the general availability of the release (links to download at the bottom of this blog). I thought it was worthwhile stepping through what we've done....

 

Firstly, the installer has had a lot of attention and tries to address the various Windows security measures as much as possible (obviously the security is there for a reason, so we don't try and circumvent anything). Where the installer can't install because of a security setting or the user's permissions, we'll tell you. We've also simplified the Start Menu items, but the intension is still the only one you should have to worry about as a normal user is "VeSys" (the screen shot below can be clicked to see it full size and clearer)

 

startmenu.png

 

Next something you won't see... the login screen. Now, if you only have one user, and that user has the default username and password... you don't see anything. As soon as you chose to use the user management capabilities by creating users or editing the defaults, then the login screen will appear.

 

The second change happens the first time you run VeSys 2.0 (and only the first time, we don't want to nag), and will offer to create a new empty project for you

 

 

You'll notice at the bottom of the dialog you have a choice about what happens in the future (Do nothing, Open last project, Display Open Project Dialog) so that should cater for most needs. It will also create an initial design (either wiring or harness depending on which licenses you have, or your preference at the time), which will be opened automatically. This is also part of the standard New Project dialog also. For existing projects you can now create new designs (and diagrams for wiring schematics) directly from the tool bar without using the project browser.

 

toolbarchanges.png

 

The new diagram button is smart too, if you select a design in the project browser, it will create the diagram in that design. If nothing is selected in the browser, it will create it in the design  you are currently working in. Most of the time you won't need to think about it at all. However, the most important thing is

 

Not revolution by any means, but a set of changes designed to make the all important first 30 minutes that bit easier, just pick a name for your first project and you'll be ready to go immediately:

 

emptyeverything2.png

How do you get the new version? You have a couple of choices depending on who you are:

 

  1. Evaluators: The evaluation download has been updated with the new version, you can download it from: http://www.mentor.com/products/cabling_harness/design-flows/vesys_elec_series/evaluate
  2. Clean Install: If you are able to do a clean install, you can download the new version from SupportNet now from: http://supportnet.mentor.com/downloads/200906049.cfm
  3. Update Existing Install: These changes are being folded into the next service pack, and everyone on support will get a notification in their Support Pro newsletter the week it's released

 

As we continue to work towards our next scheduled release we're still looking for improvements to be made, and are planning better ways for you the users to get their ideas to us. Watch this space.

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I am amazed at this year's TLA entries.  Not only did we have entries from 17 countries, but scanning the entries it appears that the complexity of these designs has increased significantly over last year's.  Much higher percent of high-speed nets.  Use of HDI and Microvias.  Lots of high pin-count ICs and FPGAs.  Much higher density of pins and routes.

 

Multiple entries from PADS, Board Station and Expedition Enterprise flows.

 

Again, this year we will create some statistics that show how these complexity factors have increased over the past years of entries.  I am sure they will show that the designers of these products are facing and overcoming severe challenges as they design competitve products for their companies.

 

Congratulations to all the entrants.  The entries are now in the hands of the independent judges and we will annouce the winners mid-September.

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Have you gone shopping lately?  Almost everything is on sale.   You can bargain almost any retailer to a lower price.  Shelves are overstocked.  So if you’re an R&D manager, now may be the time to go cheap and get some bargain basement deals on you design tools.  After all, now can’t be the time to invest in R&D and upgrade you organization. 

NOT!  Actually, going cheap in R&D is totally contrary to what the business world advises.  Experts are saying that NOW is the best time to invest and increase the productivity of your R&D.   Now is the time to invest in the development of world-beating products.  Now is the time to fine tune your R&D organizations, produce products that beat the competition (and grab those dollars that ARE being spent), and, prepare yourself to emerge from the recession as a strong organization.

Forbes.com, McKinsey Quarterly, April, 2009:  Notably, the companies that get the greatest benefit from innovation appear to be taking a different approach. Executives at such companies are far likelier to say that they are increasing R&D budgets, expanding R&D activities and shifting to longer-term, higher-risk projects. These executives are also nearly twice as likely to report that their companies view the downturn as an opportunity to upgrade R&D. As such results suggest, companies that already excel at R&D seem to be using the crisis to extend their competitive advantage.”

This applies to many aspects of the business.   Invest in your designers’ education and teach them the basics of the most advanced IC and PCB technologies, and, when to use them.  Invest in their training on how to efficiently implement these technologies using the design tools.  Invest in the most advanced design tools so your designers are the most productive (R&D budgets), can use the most advanced technologies (competitive products), and get those products to market on time (time to market).  But, whatever you do, now is NOT the time to pull back and go cheap!

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Back in 1989 we came to realize that there was not enough recognition for the designers that used EDA tools to design very complex PCB.   Back then the PCB were not nearly as complex but niether were the PCB design tools.

 

Yet, designers were able to continually push the envelop using creative methods to develop board that enabled their companies to beat their competition.  But more than often, these designers were taken for granted.  They always performed.  They met their budgets and schedules.  So when you contuinually don't get in trouble, you often get taken for granted by management.

 

So we decided to recognize the designers that produced outstanding work and the way to do this was to compare them to designers worldwide.  We created the TLA contest and it has run for now 20 years and the results have been outstanding.  Designers who place in this competiton have been compared to other designers in the world (and tupically only good ones enter) and are finally recognized by their management for their creativeness and hard work.

 

So if you are proud of your work and want to be recognized for it (great career enhancing move) I encourage you to enter the contest.  Time is limited!

 

http://www.mentor.com/products/pcb-system-design/tla/

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Hopefully, you have taken the opportunity to download my free E-book, the HDI HANDBOOK. NOW is your chance to tell me what would make interesting reading for FUTURE chapters in the SECOND EDITION of the HDI Handbook.  Here are some brief descriptions of what I am planning to add now.  But this book isn't for me - it's for ALL of you!  So provide me with some advice and if you know the perfect expert that could write that chapter, throw that in as well.  I thank you all now for helping me.  The Second Edition will be available for download on Jan. 3, 2010.

 

1. Automatic Chemical Process Monitoring and Control - High-speed PCB and FPC manufacturing with increasing density requires better chemical control of processes.  This chapter will describe traditional instrumental and some not-so-standard methods of automatic chemical analysis and control.  The PCB processes, individual anion and cations and other indicators are highlighted for control.

  

2. Process Automation Strategies and Equipment - Complementing high-speed manufacturing is high-speed automated equipment.  This is the first time that 10 different types of automated PCB equipemnt has been described and features.  Conveyorized: horizontal, vertical, overhead and hybrid;  Process Tanks: walking beam, cable, split-rail pusher and side-arm return-type;  Programmed Hoists: cantelevered and gantry.  Control systems, programming hoists, simplified control theory and automation strategies are also described.


3. Design Methodologies for Creating Proper Split Power Planes  - Plane design methodology to eliminate noise problems.  How you need to change the design perspective of PDNs.  The PCB design setup for: Connecting to the plane, plane shapes, Do's and Don'ts to be considered, plane "Routing" strategies for fanout power vias.  Evaluating plane integrity, consideration of decoupling capacitors and buried capacitance.  Power Supply checklist, new IPC standards for current carrying and deficiencies in CAD tools today.

4. Impedance, Stackups and Crosstalk - A complete look at signal tracts to transfer signal power from one device to another by consideration of materials, stackups, impedance matching and crosstalk.  The various high-speed models for microstrips and stripline, of differential signalling, with coplanar and waveguide alternatives are explained.  Advanced noise explanation of crostalk are also explained.

5. BGA Breakout Strategies - Charles Pfeil of Mentor has agreed to write a chapter that summarizes his theories and book on " BGA Breakout and Routing-ED II".  His new technique for breakout of large BGAs has revolutionised the wiring of boards.  It was highlighter in Chapter 3, but in only 4 pages- now it will be explained in a lot more detail.

6. Coupons and Techniques for Process Control - Ron Rhodes had a distinguished carreer at Bell Labs and will provide a chapter on the use of PCB coupons to highlight  quality and process capability.  Reliability is another set of coupons and have a different focus.  How to interpret and "what these coupons mean" is another distinguished topics that Ron created by writing a column in CircuiTree magazine from 1994 to 2007.

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In Part 2 of this Blog series I will cover my inspiration for this design project as well as the initial project creation. I am going to leverage a multimedia Blog format to make this a little more entertaining.

 

This blog has three videos, use the navigation bar on the left to view all three.

 

Stay tuned for Part 3 where I will create the system level block diagram and use that to drive top down design refinement.

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The new 2007.x version of the DxDesigner / Expedition design flow has more power and flexibility than I was aware of. I was working through some PCB designs and I made a comment to one of my MGC engineering friends: “The new DxDesigner is great! But wouldn't it be nice if I could design multiple Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) within a single project?”

Well, he was kind to me. He gently informed me that single project, multiple PCB design was a reality and that I simply lacked the tool expertise to exploit these advanced features. Once the basic concepts were explained to me, and trust me, there is no real “magic” here, I was able to quickly create complex, multi-board system design with the DxDesigner - Expedition design flow.

Once I worked through the process I realized the true limitation: The limitation was me, I have a long history of EDA tool usage and my arrogance manifests in my steadfast refusal to attend training or read the product documentation (sound familiar?). I have long held the belief: If I am unable to figure out how to use the software to accomplish my objectives then, the software isn’t very good (because I am ;) ). OK, every once in a while life slaps some sense into all of us :)

Since it is impossible for me to believe that I am alone in my perspective and attitude regarding EDA tools I thought the best approach to recover from my arrogance was to create a demonstration highlighting the multi-board, single project capabilities of the 2007.x Expedition design flow.

Since I am a true engineer (nerd, geek, pick your adjective) I have created a demonstration around one of my hobby projects: My Wind Turbine. Due to the length of the design process I will break this demonstration process up into multiple segments within each blog, and multiple blog chapters. If you follow my Blogs for the next few weeks you will not only learn how to use DxDesigner and the Expedition flow to create multi-Board PCB Systems, you will also learn how to build the electronics for a coil winder used in the construction of home built wind turbines.

In part 2 of this Blog I will review the design requirements as well as the creation of the DxDesigner Project and the top level system diagram. I like to use top-down system refinement as my design method so you will also see how DxDesigner may be used to accomplish more than simple PCB design.

As we plow through this process please share your perspectives!

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Software at 200mph in CHS Design Tasks

Posted by Nigel Jun 19, 2009

Just a short note to welcome a new member of the IESD Product Marketing Team, Phil Davies. Phil joins us from the Honda Formula 1 motor racing team where he was their Electronic Design Manager and has over 15 years of experience in the application of electronics and electrical systems. His experience includes a wide range of tools, including the use and deployment of CATIA V5 & Enovia, Siemens NX & TeamCenter, SAP, and VeSys. I’m certain with his expertise he is going to be able to make a significant contribution to our efforts in the coming years.

 

 

Phil’s initial product focus will be on the Enterprise tools (MCAD/PLM integrations & extensibility) but with his experience deploying enterprise level software in the real-world, I’m looking forward to working with him in many other areas. Perhaps importantly (as someone with VeSys Classic experience) he has been subjected during his first week to a barrage of usability tests. It was good to see him trip over some of the things mentioned in my earlier postings, and that's given us a chance to review the changes we are proposing with him. Useful feedback.

 

On a lighter note, at a COMDEX conference Bill Gates is reported to have said (you can read the full text here)

 

“If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon.”

 

So now we have a Formula One engineer who has spent the last 15 years trying to get a car around a track as quickly as possible contributing to the design of our software... I would welcome suggestions of the impact that might have.... but perhaps if F1 engineers designed software... It would run incredibly quickly, but you would need to replace most of the libraries each time you used it. I'm sure you could do better!

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I'm sure all of you are aware of the rapid progression of HDI technology used in mobile phones, telecom and advanced consumer products.  But HDI is rapidly being introduced into military and space programs as well.  The HDI for military and space has to be ultra-reliable and capable of harsh environments.  The cost to develop these materials and fabrication processes can be quite high.  So the IPC has teamed up with the U.S. Navy and the NSWC-CRANE  state-of-the-art PCB facility to develop an advanced HDI Hands-On fabrication course this fall (PD-05).

Open to all fabricators, this is a 3-day, hands-on, working course that embraces the latest advanced HDI features required by new military and aerospace programs and employed by advanced telecom systems as well.  The October 13-15 working laboratory event is proceeded by 5 2-hour WebEx classroom instructions on Sept. 14-18, to provide more "hands-on" time in Oct.  The "Hands-on" attendance is limited to only 21 participants, due to the nature that everyone will build HDI boards, so register early at the IPC.  http://www.ipc.org

PD-05: High Density Interconnect

October 13-15, 2009 - Crane, Indiana

This HDI fabrication hands-on workshop provides an essential instructive platform for companies interested in learning the advanced fabrication processes of HDI technology. Attendees will be provided a “hands-on” working laboratory event that features informative technical tutorials and an invaluable “hands-on” workshop, where you will actually build these HDI structures.  You will be provided the instructional HDI technology as it relates to advanced HDI fabrication — as needed by numerous aerospace, military, telecom and computer OEMs with an emphasis on high reliability and endurance. Join us for this enlightening series, and discover what you need to know to implement HDI technology in all of its forms.

What You Will Learn:


Tutorial presentations and hands-on exercises cover these topics :

  • Imaging and etching — achieving fine lines and spaces, controlled copper etch
  • Lamination & Via formation — mechanical and laser drilling & lamination of new materials
  • Metallization & Electrodeposition — desmear, electroless copper, direct metalization and semi-additive processing— improved throwing power copper fill, enhancing through hole and microvia reliability, copper thickness requirements for thermal reliability and process controls
  • Process control coupons, DOE, Reliability and testing—in-process coupons for HDI and reliability coupons
  • HDI Exercises at NSWC-Crane Laboratory
  • Fine line Direct Imaging/etching- 25 um traces/25 um spaces (~1 mil lines/spaces) using new sacrificial super-foil “DFF”
  • Lamination of new thin Laser Drillable Prepreg, like 1086LD or 1067LD for power integrity and impedance control
  • Copper “Super-fill” plating to plate up microvias from 75~150 um in diameter
  • Drilled via filling with epoxy to plug buried vias
  • Etching & laser drilling ceramic BC materials for buried capacitors and distributed capacitance
  • HDI process control coupons to monitor the HDI fab process
  • IST coupons to test the reliability of the finished HDI board.

High Density Interconnect Webcast Series

September 14-18, 2009

(10:00 am – 12:00 am Central Daylight Savings Time)

This series of five two (2)-hour webcasts will address key technologies for fabricators who want to get into advanced HDI fabrication.

September 14, 2009 - Overview/ Design/ Process Control & Reliability

  • Process control coupons, DOE, Reliability and testing—in-process coupons for HDI and reliability coupons

    • HDI Exercises at NSWC-Crane Laboratory
    • HDI process control coupons to monitor the HDI fab process

               

                  • IST coupons to test the reliability of the finished HDI board

                September 15, 2009 - Fine-line and Via-Formation

                Imaging and etching — achieving fine lines and spaces, controlled copper etch

                • Lamination & Via formation — mechanical and laser drilling & lamination of new materials
                • Fine line Direct Imaging/etching- 25 um traces/25 um spaces (~1 mil lines/spaces) using new sacrificial super-foil “DFF”
                • Semi-additive processing (SAP) using new molecular interface technology to achieve 25 micron traces and spaces
                • Etching & laser drilling ceramic BC materials for buried capacitors and distributed capacitance

                September 16, 2009 - Material Control and Lamination

                • Lamination of new thin Laser Drillable Prepreg, like 1086LD or 1067LD for power integrity and impedance control

                September 17, 2009 - Via-Fill

                • Drilled via filling with epoxy to plug buried vias
                • Copper “Super-fill” plating to plate up microvias from 75~150 um in diameter

                September 18, 2009 - Metallization & Electrodeposition

                  • Metallization & Electrodeposition — desmear, electroless copper, direct metalization and semi-additive processing— improved throwing power copper fill, enhancing through hole and microvia reliability, copper thickness requirements for thermal reliability and process controls

                 

                 

                Slide1.JPGSlide3.JPG

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                We knew it was going to be a challenge… but when we laid out the objectives for VeSys 2.0, one of the key VeSys Classic traits we wanted to capture was the ease-of-use. Although there would be some things we just wouldn’t be able to address in the very first release, we worked hard to nail some of the basics:

                 

                1.      The tool can be installed easily on a single machine in one go (no more AutoCAD install!)

                2.      All the services are automatically set-up for the user, they just click and go! Really, they shouldn't need to know they exist at all.

                3.      We provided a rich set of starter symbols and library parts all with simulation models attached and a project showing how they could be used

                4.      There’s a test drive AVI supplied that takes a user through a front-to-back-nothing-to-completed-harness-design process

                5.      Although we had added the power of users, we’d made it easy to create & edit them

                 

                All of this, we thought, would mean that you could download an evaluation copy and be happily experimenting with the tool in minutes, not hours. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting (is that a UK only phrase?), so we carefully watched beta-users… when we spotted them struggling we made changes. In short, we did everything you were supposed to do. We were very successful, the first wave of new users were up and running in minutes.

                 

                Can you feel the but coming?

                 

                We did get a lot right, but what’s to come really shows the a few misplaced assumptions can have a disproportionate impact on usability. What I’m going to do is go through 4 of the 5 things above (the Test Drive has been very well received, people just want more of them!) and illustrate what we got wrong (and what we are going to do about it).

                The Easy Install

                Lesson Learned: Sometimes it’s better to just give up

                There is a technical issue that we found with the installer pertaining to Windows permissions and over-active security software, but that’s not the really interesting bit… There’s no way around it, if the user doesn’t have permission to install software, or to write to certain directory then they don’t and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s not even that we crashed or just bombed out. The installer dutifully slogged on doing what it could. There’s the mistake… We should have just given up and told the user they didn’t have the right permissions. In this case, nothing is better than something (that didn't completely work).

                Automatic Service Set-up

                Lesson Learned: Too much information

                You’ve run the installer, you are asked to reboot, you do. You log back in and go to the programs menu and the VeSys group… now… all of the services VeSys needs to run are up and running silently in the background just as they should. However, as we know some users don’t or can’t run services we have the capability to manually start and stop the services. We put the icons to do this (Start and Stop VeSys Manager) in the program group. Users are smart, they see the Start VeSys Manager icon and they think “I should run that before running VeSys”. They get an error saying it couldn’t start. Well it couldn’t. So the user thinks the install hasn’t worked, time to pick up the phone or send an e-mail to the sales guy or CSD.

                vesysstartmenu.gif

                What we should have done is leave those applications for the system admins to use, and not make them as visible to users. Everything was fine, and if the only icon they had had was “VeSys” they would have clicked that all would have been well.

                Getting Started with Starter Data

                Lesson Learned: The First Step is the Hardest

                VeSys Classic, and perhaps more importantly AutoCAD, is a file based application. When you start it up you get a blank sheet. When you click save, it just has to ask you way to save the file. As long as you can see how to add a device and a wire, you are pretty much good to start exploring.

                emptyvesys2.gif

                VeSys 2.0 opens up with an empty screen. What had become obvious to our beta testers; that you needed to click New Project, create a new design (more on that later) and then get going… turned out not to be obvious to those who hadn't just watched Nuri (the Product Manager for VeSys and the CHS Interactive Flow). All those users see is an empty screen. Then, if they do figure out they need to create new project (easy enough, one click and give it a name) they still have a blank sheet. We had left the New Design button in a context menu. Again, we and our beta testers had become blind to this. New users… got stuck. There are two perspectives on this… one is that you are only three mouse clicks and a couple of keystrokes away from getting stuck in… the other is that unless you know how to find the button.. it might as well be impossible.

                Easy User Management

                Lesson Learned: Even easier than do something… is doing nothing

                I mentioned above that AutoCAD and VeSys Classic just drop you into a blank sheet. Off you go. Before the application even starts up, we ask for a user name and password.

                vesys2login.gif

                That’s fine, in fact it’s a real benefits of the tool, controlling which users have permissions to do which things (see Correct by Constriction). Except that if you are evaluating the software what you really want to do is just click on the application and get stuck in, rather than being challenged to prove you are worthy to connect. Again, the system admins may want to get things set-up, but evaluators or a one-man design consultancy just would rather we didn’t ask.

                So what are we going to do about it?

                In the end, none of these problems have not been solved over a quick conversation, and in-fact early tool users didn't see them as important enough to report to us, it took over a month before I happened to be in a meeting where a user half mentioned the problems. However, we really don't believe that these kinds of issues match our design brief, so we are going to fix them. Sadly they came a little too late to make it into the first Service Pack, but we are going to resolve them immediately afterwards (some of the work is already done). I'll make sure I keep you the readers up to date on exactly when and how we will be delivering the changes, but we are not going to sit on them for a minute longer than we need to.

                6 Comments Permalink

                Improving your personal performance is a large topic.  But a critical area is high-frequency electrical performance for the board in both signals and plane PDN.  Other new trends are incremental design/validation methodologies and the improved use of constraint-autorouting, as well as re-use of circuits and DfT.  More on this in future BLOGS.

                Here is where I suggest that you start looking for where you can learn these new topics.  First, if you have not downloaded my new HDI HANDBOOK, this is a good place to start.  The 631 page e-Book is FREE, so there is no excuse not to have it.  You can download it from my BLOG at http://communities.mentor.com/mgcx/community/pcb/pcb_blogs/happy_holden .  My Chapter-4 “HDI Electrical Performance” is written by Dr. Eric Bogatin, and Dr. Bogatin has many more resources available for learning.  His past Web Series on “No MYTHS Allowed” can be downloaded from www.gigatest.com/Publications/PubsIndex.jsp This site has 105 documents, lectures and tutorials available from Dr. Bogatin.  Figure 1 shows a typical slide form one of his lectures. Dr. Bogatin’s current Internet Site is http://www.BeTheSignal.com and it also has many free tutorials on it .

                bFig3.jpg

                 

                Another very useful design ‘Toolkit’ is provided by Kenneth Wood, owner of Saturn PCB Design in Deltona, FL.[3]  His Toolkit is shown in Figure 2 and provides software to calculate physical and electrical characteristics of vias and conductors; signal bandwidth and max. lengths; differential-pair impedances; padstack designs; drill/wire gauge conversions; min conductor spacing for voltages; and microstrip/stripline impedances.  This can be downloaded at:  (http://www.saturnpcb.com )

                FIG4.jpg

                 

                Another source of training and learning is to use Google and Yahoo to search the Internet for college classes in signal integrity, EMI Compliance, Design for Manufacturing or high-speed design.  One such search yielded the “EE166: High-Speed PCB Design” course at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA.  HMC has the distinction of being awarded “One of the Top Undergraduate Engineering Schools in the US”.  In this case it was the lecture notes and labs by Prof. Sarah Harris   -(www3.hmc.edu/~sharris/class/e166/)[4].

                The IPC Designers Council and the IEEE are constantly running courses for designers.

                Last, to reduce schedules is one of “Push Left”, “Do it right the first time” and distribute more activities in parallel.  Move critical activities and checks/audits up earlier in the design process.  Find any problems or mistakes early.  IF [errors] found in manufacturing, critical schedules and costs are bound to be impacted.  Now is the time to “learn to use the autorouter correctly” and “how to apply signal and power integrity”!

                 

                Finally, if you are “surplused”, “made redundant”, “sacked”, “displaced”, “sacrificed” or just “let GO”, Mentor has the “Displaced Worker Program”. [5] You may take Mentor classes on a “Space Available” basis, for free, and that includes online courses as well as in-class courses in Austin, Boston (Marlborough, MA), Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver (Longmont, CO), Portland (Wilsonville, OR) and San Jose.  Go to http://www.mentor.com/training_and_services/training/dwp to check on availability.

                REFERENCES

                1.      HDI Handbook and other tech papers, tutorials at http://communities.mentor.com/mgcx/community/pcb/pcb_blogs/happy_holden

                2.      Eric Bogatin’s “No MYTHS Allowed” at GigaTest Labs, there is 105 doc. www.gigatest.com/Publications/PubsIndex.jsp & www.bethesignal.com

                3.      Free PCB Tools (www.saturnpcb.com) –vias, conductors, signals, diff pairs, padstacks, min. conductor Spacing & impedance.

                4.      University course lectures (like EE166 High Speed PCB Design by Dr. Sarah Harris of Harvey Mudd College-(www3.hmc.edu/~sharris/class/e166/)

                5.      If ‘out of work’, Mentor has the “Displaced Workers Program” allows you to audit our training for free, go to http://www.mentor.com/training_and_services/training/dwp

                2 Comments Permalink

                Control is a good thing. It helps us as designers improve quality, to ensure that mistakes aren't made that impact your customers. CHS is designed with control (and therefore constraint) in mind. From tagging wires with valid option expressions to selecting valid names for components (selecting, not entering, from a list of pre-defined names) to full physical wire synthesis untouched by human hands and guaranteed to implement the signals in a device or system led design perfectly for every configuration of every vehicle, different levels of control are available to our users. I think we all know this, however, when a software tool we are using tells us that we can't do something, gives a list to choose from rather than a free text field, or just does it automatically... it can be hard to believe that the software is making our lives better.

                 

                In general we design CHS to allow configuration of which controls are in place. You can restrict what individual users, or groups of users, can or can't do. You can restrict what operations anyone can perform on designs at a particular release status. Of course, you can just not set any of that up and let every user do everything at every stage. I'm sure we all agree that's probably not a good thing for all but the smallest of organizations.

                 

                However, with control (and therefore correct by construction, you just can't make the mistake; you're not allowed to or the task is completed automatically) there are however some perceived costs, and in general it's the engineer, the individual working on the wiring/harness/system design that feels them most directly:

                 

                • Flexibility: There are always times where (especially in this industry driven by change) there's a quick way to do it, and the absolutely right way of doing it. As problem solving creatures, we like to find the quickest route to solving the problem. However, we should question the benefit if in our haste we introduce a new problem...
                • Control: Automating a manual task is not always seen as liberating, but sometimes a sense of lack of control can be introduced; how do I know it's right? Of course the reality is that software is much better at the repetitive tasks we are most likely to make mistakes whilst completing.
                • Creativity: We all believe that design is about more than just clicking the mouse-button, that there is a genuine creative process. Automation or constraints can make us feel that the opportunity for creativity is removed. Although the perception is understandable, I suspect the reality is the opposite. Because we are not having to worry about if we typed a name correctly, or got the option expression for one out of the millions possible build-able vehicle  configurations, we can get on with finding innovative solutions to new problems
                • Configuration: Setting up constraints, getting the right data in can be seen as another overhead. Again, this is typically just perception. Once the data is there, it's re-used countless times. More importantly, it can normally be easily imported from other tools in use around an organization (especially tempting if the data is constantly changing... web-services anyone?)

                 

                The response to a computer doing something for you that you used to do, or telling you you are not allowed to do what you want to do is sometimes an uncomfortable one. We all feel that our minds, our technical ingenuity adds some very real value to the work we are performing, and it does. However, when you look at the impact of mistakes, it's perhaps important to look at the true cost of total freedom. We can't just consider the direct costs either, there's an impact on the brand as well which can be much harder to measure (and indeed to overcome). Here are a few interesting bits of data about recalls (it should be noted that these are in general automotive in general rather than specifically electronic or electrical). Let's start with an estimated impact on customer loyalty.

                 

                Number of Previous Vehicle RecallsLoyalty %
                None57%
                One recall57%
                Two recalls56%
                Three to four recalls52%
                Five or more recalls48%

                Source: Polk Manufacturer Loyalty Excelerator (TM)

                2000 Model Year, First Six Month from allbusiness.com


                 

                These figures are quite old now (2000, it's surprisingly hard to find publicly accessable data one can link to in a blog), but it causes you to stop and think about whether or not the internet may have made the impact greater, as the speed of information trends ever upwards. The numbers aren't small either: US Auto Recall Statistics: 1993-2004

                 

                So the impact is real, and software like CHS and VeSys have a real contribution to make to solving the problem. I believe that instead of there being a cost of loss of flexibility or creativity that correct by construction methodologies actually have a benefit for engineers. The safety net that software and automation provide allows them to be more creative and responsive, safe in the knowledge that the software is not going to allow them to make a potentially costly mistake.

                 

                What do you think? Where do you think the right balances between constraints and freedom can be struck?

                1 Comments Permalink

                For those of you not familiar with Paul Hansen, he has been producing analysis of the automotive electronics market since the late 80's (you can download a sample here). To quote the Wall Street journal it is "the bible of the automotive electronics industry". Each issue covers a range of topics providing an uncannily accurate assessment of our industry and the changes and challenges it faces. About half of each issue profiles a particular supplier, and in April's edition (sorry this is late, but we've covered my abject failure as a blogger) Paul profiled Mentor Graphics and our various automotive offerings.

                 

                Paul has presented at the last two IESF events in Detroit (2007 and 2008), and therefore I feel he has a better than average understanding of what it is that we do, and our vision. As a result the profile he has produced is very well balanced combining his industry-insider insight with a comprehensive knowledge of our tools. You can subscribe to his report directly from his web-site http://www.hansenreport.com/ . We have been lucky enough to be able this section of the report, and you can download it directly from the mentor.com web-site at: http://www.mentor.com/solutions/automotive/hansen-report_reg

                 

                It's well worth the read, and for those of you that are not just interested in CHS, addresses the complete Mentor Graphics offering for the automotive market, including in-vehicle networks, mechatronic simulation, PCB, and embedded software.

                0 Comments Permalink

                Why VeSys 2.0? in CHS Design Tasks

                Posted by Nigel May 28, 2009

                A Moment of Reflection

                We released VeSys 2.0 at the end of March, and when it came to preparing for our regular operations review I took the opportunity to ask Nuri (the Product Manager for VeSys) to put together a couple of slides describing the first 30 days of its life. There is a lot to be proud of but as I have a habit of saying to my team, it's the negatives that tell you what you need to do to be better.

                First Things First

                Our original goal was not for the first release to be instantly adopted by existing VeSys users (a loyal bunch, who quite rightly really like the product), we knew that to get all of the tweaks and tuning, as well as the migration tools required, would take a little longer to get into VeSys 2.0. So VeSys 2.0 was targeted at new users, but we made sure that it was very easy for VeSys Classic customers to get their hands on the new version and start giving us that all important feedback.

                They have not disappointed! However, before we get to that I wanted to tell you a story about Apple (please, no groans from those that know me... it's relevant I promise!).

                This Blog is not Sponsored by Apple but…

                Apple have a product called iLife, you get it free when you buy a new Mac but you do have to buy upgrades that are released after you've bought your Mac. One of the key parts of the Suite is a tool called iMovie. It's a wonderful tool that allows Prosumers (highly skilled amateurs) to put together amazing family videos, and I've even used it for putting together the occasional product video. In 2008 Apple released a new version. In the words of Steve Jobs “completely replacing one of the key apps with something that takes it to a whole new level”. Although for new users (and given those users are probably new to Apple computers and OS X, and therefore in “Learning Mode”) there were no great shakes, what they saw probably made sense. For existing users the story was very different, and they expressed significant frustration and anger. What had Apple done? Well firstly, some of the features users were used to were gone. However more importantly, they had completely dropped the normal video editing convention of having an infinitely long timeline, for a new paradigm. For those of us who were long standing iMovie users, there were lots of things that didn’t make sense. Some of the changes didn’t even seem justifiable. Why would they do it this way for no tangible benefit?

                Of course, the initial reaction softened over time, as we all learned the new interface. However, there were still missing features (no migration tools, old projects could be brought in as raw footage, but were no longer editable), together with a horde of smaller features that we had grown to depend on. Apple did listen, and a few weeks after the initial release, made the old iMovie available for download for those that had upgraded the overall suite, but wanted to stick with the old movie editor.

                Roll forward to the next release of iLife… and iMovie takes center stage. The missing features were largely back in, all of the important ones anyway, but much more importantly for those of us who had been using the “Classic” version it was a real “I get it now” moment. The presentation wasn’t made by Steve himself, but instead by the engineer who had proposed the re-write, who had had The Big Idea. He took the stage and took the time to show that Apple had listened about the missing features, and they were there, but then when it to show how the new editing paradigm had been evolved… he demonstrated what had been his vision. Tasks that were previously not supported in the original version, were there. Things that had been hard, or very manual, were there and the re-write had enabled them to take the software in directions they simply could not have gone in before. I don’t use iMovie Classic anymore.

                Change is Good

                I’m sure you see where I have been going with this. Whilst our revolution is not in the editing paradigm, it is in the fundamental architecture of VeSys, and where we can take it in the future. It’s not that we couldn’t have done some of the things we will release in new versions without the replacement of VeSys, but they would have been dramatically harder to achieve. In fact out of the box VeSys 2.0 has drawn in customers that had previously rejected VeSys because of things that would have taken much longer than the entire development time of VeSys 2.0 to deliver.

                For existing users for whom the benefit of VeSys 2.0 is not yet sufficient or obvious, you still have VeSys Classic. However, right now we are busily working on the migration tools, adding things that Classic did that 2.0 doesn’t (and trying to do them just that little bit better), and some other more immediate actions in order to respond to some of that negative feedback we received in the first 30 days.

                I’m going to address some of that feedback in some subsequent blogs (I’ve gone on long enough today), and talk about the progress and timing of the migration tools (I don’t share Steve’s love of secrecy!), but for now… Thank you very much for all the feedback, we are listening, we are making changes in response, and please use this community to tell us what you think we need to know.

                9 Comments Permalink
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