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Dezember 31, 2018
Mitigating Board Complexity with System-level Engineering
Demand for faster data speeds is increasing. Boards are becoming more dense. Requirements call for the latest protocols and devices. Packaging constraints call for multi-board and flex-board systems. The surest sign of escalating board complexity lies in the fact that few are designed by a single engineer. Today, most require the coordination of many engineers instead. And overall, this trend shows no sign of abating. Board complexity looks like it will only get worse...
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There’s no doubt that board systems are getting more complex. System-level engineering can help mitigate those risks. One of the main advantages...
- Blog
Dezember 21, 2018
Curved Trunking: New SI Routing Feature for Differential Pairs and Busses in CADSTAR
PCB designers working with advanced and complex designs are constantly pushing the boundaries to satisfy the signal integrity of routed differential pairs and busses. Those who work with flexible and flex-rigid PCB designs are perhaps the most demanding of all. A while ago, the introduction of the curved corner style for routing trunks in CADSTAR made a big difference to this group of users.
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- Blog
Dezember 06, 2018
Modular Board Design: A Platform Approach to Increase Product Variants and Decrease Components
It sounds like a paradox: electronics manufacturers can increase variation within a product line while using fewer electronic components. Reuse keeps product costs low, increases product flexibility and customization. Far from paradoxical, the approach is quite doable today through a process called modular board design coupled with predictive analysis numbers returned by the Internet of Things.
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Modular board design coupled with predictive analysis results gathered from the Internet of Things keeps product costs low and increases flexibili...
- Blog
November 29, 2018
Additive Manufacturing Helps Build Lower Cost Replacement Parts and Tools
It has often been noted that many of the aircraft and other weapons systems used by the armed forces are older than the service men and women operating and maintaining them. While the average age of a U.S. domestic commercial airliner is 11 years, it is not uncommon for aircraft to still be in service at 30 years. Likewise, there are many machines and systems in electric power generation, discrete parts manufacturing, chemical process, oil and gas production and many other industries that have been in continuous operation for several decades or longer.
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Additive manufacturing technology helps save significant time and cost in the maintenance and repair of machinery and systems across industries. ...
- Blog
Oktober 25, 2018
Bridging the Gap between the Maker Movement and Mass Production Technology with IoT and the Trillion-Node Engine
Japan is one of the first countries to face the combination of challenges such as energy issues, population decline and an aging society. Solving these problems with the benefit of the Internet of Things (IoT) could generate future business opportunities as well as meeting the demands of society. Enabling as many people as possible to try out new ideas, and encouraging them to develop diverse products, will broaden these opportunities. The Trillion-Node Engine is a platform for realizing this objective.
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- Blog
Oktober 05, 2018
Connect Your Component Library to the Supply Chain
Take a walk in the engineer’s shoes: I need an 80 MHZ network controller for my new project and I found one in the PLM/PDM system. That was easy. Now a quick check in the procurement database to do a price and availability check. So far so good, now on to the component engineering system to see if there are any possible lifecycle issues with a 10-year minimum requirement. It’s my lucky day, no issues and it’s a company-preferred part with an ECAD library instance.
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Design engineers must have the ability to make intelligent component selections involving critical supply chain information without having to leav...
- Blog
Oktober 04, 2018
How Connected Products and Modular Design Can Improve Your Product Quality
Using feedback from products in the field to continuously improve design modules used as the basis for product development can increase product performance and reliability and reduce development time.
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Using feedback from products in the field to continuously improve design modules used as the basis for product development can increase product pe...
- Blog
September 27, 2018
Getting IoT Device Design Right for EMC and the 'Interference of Things'
As we welcome increasing numbers of IoT devices into our industries, offices and home lives, we shouldn’t be surprised to see increasing electromagnetic (EM) congestion. Or, as it’s now dubbed, the ‘Interference of Things’.
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As we welcome increasing numbers of IoT devices into our industries, offices and home lives, we shouldn’t be surprised to see increasing electro...
- Blog
September 20, 2018
Flex Circuits Stretch the Limits of Technology
A customer recently asked me if CR-8000 Design Force could support stretchable flex designs. At first, I found the question odd, until they shared their intent: wearable electronics. The idea of wearable electronic products like head and wrist bands sparked an interesting conversation and piqued my interest.
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A customer recently asked me if CR-8000 Design Force could support stretchable flex designs. At first, I found the question odd, until they shared...
- Blog
September 12, 2018
Metal Additive Helps Overcome Tough Electronics Cooling Challenge
Man-carried military communication systems often consume large amounts of power. The heat must be removed from the electronics package to avoid frying sensitive electronic components. The package typically is designed to be carried in a backpack which often puts difficult constraints on the form factor and weight of the system
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Man-carried military communication systems often consume large amounts of power. The heat must be removed from the electronics package to avoid fr...
- Blog
August 21, 2018
Connect CR-8000 with Polar Instruments' Speedstack PCB Stackup/ECAD Interface
We’re happy to announce that Speedstack, Polar Instruments’ layer stackup design/documentation tools, can now be directly linked to Zuken’s CR-8000 Design Force and DFM Center.
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We're happy to announce that Speedstack, Polar Instruments' layer stackup design/documentation tools, can now be directly linked to Zuken's CR-800...
- Blog
August 16, 2018
What You Really Need to Know When You're Routing PCB Differential Pairs
Tips for when routing differential pairs - You can tell when something isn’t as clear as it should be. The same questions come up time and again. You ask three experts and get three different answers. Routing differential pairs can be like that. Why? Because “it depends” - on exactly what signals those pairs are carrying and what kind of PCB you’re creating.
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You can tell when something isn’t as clear as it should be. The same questions come up time and again. You ask three experts and get three diffe...
- Blog
Mai 24, 2018
Faster Board Speeds Demand Constraint-driven Design
Do you still use Post-it Notes? Invented in 1979, this simple, yet incredibly powerful, communication mechanism is still commonly found in engineering and design departments. Despite modern electronic communication, many companies still struggle to provide a replacement for their ease-of-use and versatility.
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Do you still use Post-it Notes? Invented in 1979, this simple, yet incredibly powerful, communication mechanism is still commonly found in enginee...
- Blog
Mai 02, 2018
Zuken Pulling Ahead in Automotive PCB Design
Zuken has been developing PCB design tools for the automotive market for years. With automotive electronics worth over $200 billion globally, and growing every day, Zuken is preparing for a brave new world of smart cars, and autonomous and electric vehicles.
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Zuken has been developing PCB design tools for the automotive market for years. With automotive electronics worth over $200 billion globally, and ...
- Blog
März 29, 2018
Controlling the Release Points for Your PLM/PDM System
There is one thing that all design engineers will agree on: creating and gathering all the required data for PLM is error-prone and can be a royal pain. We all understand the value of releasing our design data to the corporate PLM system but our design process dictates multiple release points, and each one has a different purpose and data requirements.
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There is one thing that all design engineers will agree on: creating and gathering all the required data for PLM is error-prone and can be a royal...
- Blog
März 22, 2018
Mastering Power Integrity: First Get Your Power Distribution System Right
I don’t think I’m generalizing when I say that designers working on complex high speed designs really don’t want to expend a lot of time and effort dealing with power integrity problems. And they especially don’t want to do it using tools that are detached from their design flow. In today’s complex PCBs, we’re talking advanced processors, complex FPGAs and superfast memories, which all share various voltage ranges.
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I don’t think I’m generalizing when I say that designers working on complex high speed designs really don’t want to expend a lot of time and...