TINLEY PARK, IL – The PCB East 2008 conference and exhibition moved into full swing today with the opening of the exhibition and Free Tuesday conference sessions. The morning sessions began with a panel discussion on Next-Generation EDA Tools. Panelists How-Siang Yap of Agilent, Josh Moore of Cadence, John Isaac of Mentor and Nikola Kontic of Zuken talked about challenges facing today's PCB designers.
Their respective companies' short-term development activities were also highlighted. Each presenter was also asked to provide a long-term vision for the future, including a roadmap and to comment on advanced technologies that might provide to be disruptive to PCB design in the near future and what can be done to avoid distruption.
The common theme among all the speakers was collaboration, integration, co-design and communication across the supply chain. Moore commented that seamless integration is critical in electronic design today. ICs, packages and PCBs need to be designed within a holistic solution to optimize performance and address business challenges.
Isaac talked about the need for both continuous and incremental improvements in the design process while also deliver ing the occasional major leaps in technology. To deliver these types of advances, industry needs to get better at breaking down barriers between disciplines and engaging in collaboration.
Kontic brought forward the importance of putting 3-D design tools to the front end of the design process, where product planning first interfaces with system-level conceptual design. He talked about the changes occurring in the EU related to low power design as companies address new regulations.
Yap talked about mixed-technology RF products and tools that will enable co-design of the PCB, package and IC. This approach will offer opportunities to optimize cost, size and performance of electronic systems that is much-needed to meet business challenges and time-to-market constraints.
The exhibition opened this afternoon and include a few new product introductions:
DownStream Technology introduced
CAM350 Release 10, the latest version of the verification and optimization tool for printed circuit boards. CAM350 integrates Blueprint’s document authoring tool to create a synergistic solution for all PCB post-processing. Users can employ CAM350 and BluePrint to create and distribute the deliverables required for a PCB fabrication and assembly release package in a single electronic file.
DesignAdvance Systems released
CircuitSpace v2.2. The new release adds an enhancement to the software that allows users to have bi-directional communication between layout and a PDF schematic. The new feature gives both designers and engineers selection and verification of design elements such as components, nets, or pins within Cadence Allegro and the schematic. The company claims that designers can reduce board layout and placement time through the use of CircuitSpace's AutoClustering, intelligent design (IP) reuse, and Cross-Probing technologies.
More products that are being featured at the exhibition can be seen at
http://pcdandf.com/cms/content/category/17/217/216/.
So, if you are in the Chicagoland area tomorrow make sure to stop by the show from 10 am till 3 pm to check out what’s new in PCB design. The technical conference runs through Friday, details can be found at
www.pcbeast.com.
