The way forward to the next generation of electronics design.

Design solutions
for tomorrow’s engineers
Bringing reality
to PCB design
Redefining design
in an evolving industry
 Copyright © 2009 Altium Limited. Altium, Altium Designer, Board Insight, Design Explorer, DXP, LiveDesign,
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Articles reproduced with permission.
FOREWoRD
Showing the way

One
of the challenges for
any company that develops innovative new
technology is letting the world know there’s a
different and better way to do things.
New technology is invariably exciting and compelling, but
just telling everyone that it’s available is not enough. We need to
know what difference it can make to the way we live and work,
and how it affects our future.
The articles contained in this collection represent a selection
of Altium’s published material that takes up the challenge of
delivering this broader message to electronics designers. In doing
so, the articles deal with a change in approach to electronics
design as much as the innovative technology that makes this
possible. And this often means embracing the concept of tackling
existing design problems in new and perhaps unfamiliar ways, or
even taking a whole new approach to the future challenges of
electronics design.
A number of pieces included here outline Altium’s approach
to design a couple of years ago, but the predictive thrust of the
content is just as valid today. Regardless of how radical that
viewpoint may have first appeared, the prophetic message of
Altium at that time has since been adopted by the broader
design community, and other design tool vendors. The concepts,
for example, of a holistic and unified design system or using
programmable devices for more than just glue logic are now
broadly accepted notions within today’s design tool vernacular.
Altium is committed to developing these processes and
systems into the future. In doing so, we will develop and deliver
any technologies that are necessary to promote innovation in
electronic product development.
The articles represent a sample of that progress, and deliver
insights into the overall evolutionary path of electronic
product design. As is the nature of progress in technology,
that development course is multifaceted. The articles are
therefore grouped by general topics that reflect significant areas
of change.
They not only point the way to how Altium can help you
create better, more innovative products now, but also provide an
insight into the next generation of electronic product design and
how you can be ready for the future.

rob evans, technical editor, altium

 CONTENTS
Section 1
Integrated vs unified design:
the benefits of a single view
Data management – it is a design issue 4
When data management is made a core function of the design
environment, designers can make informed and correct choices
right from the start of the design process, and design elements
and information can be effectively propagated and reused from
project to project.
Design solutions for tomorrow’s engineers 10
Electronics organizations need better solutions to be prepared for the
future and move beyond the old ways. What is needed is a new way of
thinking – a single unified approach to the entire design process that
models where development is now.

Section 2
Embedded design:
the freedom to innovate
Embedded design without hard barriers 16
Is it possible to eliminate custom physical design from electronic
product development? When coupled with the right tools, an FPGA-
based reconfigurable hardware platform can allow embedded designers
to go from development right through to production without the need
for custom hardware design.
Freedom of choice 22
FPGA design tools that are inherently aligned with a specific vendor
restrict how an electronic product is designed, and the method that
can be used. Moving to a unified, vendor-independent product design
system will deliver the design freedom and flexibility that’s needed to
create today’s competitive, innovative products.

2 The Way Forward 2009

Section 3 Section 4
Focus on the soft domain: Dynamic ECAD-MCAD
back to the essence of design collaboration: creating a new era
Same hardware, different application 28 Bringing reality to PCB design 52
With so many pressures on electronics design today, what should PCB assemblies are three-dimensional entities, yet we traditionally
electronic designers do? A new focus on product intelligence and the design them using 2D software. How much does this inhibit the
rise of electronic ‘systems’ may well hold the answer. The importance design process, and what would be the benefits of an ECAD system
of device connectivity as it relates to the changing role of hardware is that provides full 3D visualization in the PCB design environment?
just one factor in achieving long-term sustainability for organizations ECAD-MCAD design – removing 25 years of pain 58
building electronic products. The electronic and mechanical aspects of today’s product designs are
intimately connected and interdependent. Introducing robust 3D
data exchange, 3D PCB visualization and clearance checking into the
ECAD domain solve the core problems of working across the electro-
mechanical divide.
Creating connections between electronics design and
manufacturing 64
Along with market globalization and the proliferation of commodity
electronics, the electronics industry is undergoing an era of
unprecedented technological change. As a result, the board design
in leading electronic products is now inextricably locked to the
Forcing the hand of electronics design 34 mechanical and crucial ‘soft’ embedded parts of the design, so all
Current economic downtrends can be seen as more of an opportunity design disciplines need to work together in a collaborative way.
to break away from a piecemeal approach to design and towards one
that is viable for continuous and sustained innovation in electronics
design. It’s a situation where companies that don’t take note of how
design is changing, and continue falling back onto old philosophies,
are more likely to end up with the losing hand to those who do.
Redefining design in an evolving industry 40
As electronics design continues to change in an increasingly global
industry, remaining competitive means focusing on the key factors
that differentiate one product from another; the ‘soft’ intelligence of a
design. This turns the conventional design process ‘inside out’.
Make functionality, not hardware 46
Designers need to focus on creating product functionality rather than
having to first design and build fixed physical hardware to support it.
This means using a design system that raises the abstraction level to
a point where functional systems can be created and implemented on
different physical platforms, without much or any re-engineering.

eSolar 9
Based in Pasadena, CA, eSolar delivers turnkey solar power generation
facilities to utilities and renewable resource owner-operators. The
company has powered up unified design by using Altium Designer
to create digital controllers that manage solar power stations.
Nara Institute of Science and Technology 15
Based in Nara, Japan, the Nara Institute of Science and Technology
(NAIST) is a national university that promotes advanced research and
education in science and technology. Altium Designer is being used to
create the innovative electronics for a radical, autonomously controlled
elliptical circular ‘flying wing’ for search and rescue work.
Siemens Karlsruhe Automation and Drives 51
The industrial IT section of Siemens Karlsruhe has reduced production
costs and enhanced productivity by using Altium technology to
develop its smart industrial automation products.
Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de
Microtechnique (CSEM) 72
European research center CSEM has developed BIOTEX, the world’s
first portable electronic textile sensor system to measure and analyze
the wearer’s biochemical and physiological data.


4 Section Header here S0

DATA MANAGEMENT
- it is a design issue

S0 Section Header here 5

 The most In all fields of engineering a
key factor in the success
of any design project is having the
brilliant right information available at the
right time. The right information is

design will accurate, up-to-date data that let you

make informed design decisions.
The right time is when critical choices
not reach are actually made, such as at the
beginning of the design cycle when

the market the decisions you make tend to lock

the fundamentals of a design.

within budget
A misinformed choice at such a seminal stage becomes
increasingly difficult to correct as the design progresses, and
its effect reverberates through all aspects of that design. In
electronic product design it might be as simple as selecting a

or on time component that has been discontinued or is in short supply, or

perhaps more expensive than expected. Changing that part to
an alternative creates a design re-spin and triggers a flow-on
increase in costs and product development time.

if the data Either way, a mistake induced by design data that lacks
‘integrity’ is costly. What’s more, that cost is amplified when
the problem is exposed later in the design process, say during
the procurement stage, where the part’s current price and

management availability status have become clear. In this case the problem
has propagated through the design chain and forced a redesign
delay late in the development.
The lack of integrity in the design data here has most likely

process fails. been caused by a failure in the way that data has been managed.
Design data management, in itself a fairly broad term, is not a new
challenge for electronics designers. It has traditionally existed at
the local design level through the control of component libraries
and file naming systems to keep track of design revisions. In
an isolated system doing just one task, the approach worked
reasonably well.
In effect, the integrity of the design data was managed at an
application level, right where design itself is done. The scope
and formality of that data management might be scaled to a
company’s particular demands, but its effectiveness has always
been linked to how successfully it is adopted by those within
the design workflow. However, data management systems have
subsequently evolved in a way that is disconnected from the
design process, making the challenge of implementing effective
data management far greater.

The rise of complexity

As the number of stages and people involved in the product
design process has increased, localized data management
has given way to overarching systems that aim to collectively
manage design data. This tends to result in a complex system,
or a collection of interconnected systems, that collates, logs
and controls the design data generated and passed between the
various design applications. It is an administrative layer imposed
over the top of the existing workflow.

6 Section Header here S0

 In a typical design environment based on a collection of In this way schematic capture, PCB layout, embedded system
‘connected’ tools, the onus is on the design data management development, and manufacturing output all use the same data
system to maintain and track a wide range of unrelated data during the product development process. Importantly, the design
from a myriad of sources. The collection of specialist design management system only needs to access and track one source
tools all use and store design data in very different ways, and of coherent data. Whether a company uses a commercial PLM
are invariably used by different people within different design system or simpler enterprise systems, a single pool of related
teams. This would typically encompass several divisions within design data is much easier and simpler to manage.
an organization including electronics design, mechanical CAD, From an immediate and practical perspective, a unified system
manufacturing, procurement, distribution and marketing. means that all of the design domains use the same component
As the data set evolves and changes throughout the design data model sourced, for example, from the same component
process, the data management system aims to provide everyone library. ‘IC10’ in the schematic uses the same data set as ‘IC10’
involved with access to the correct and current version of all in the PCB layout or BoM. The libraries can be managed as a
design information, while simultaneously managing and single centralized resource so library data inconsistencies and
tracking changes. This is an undeniably impressive feat when all duplication are eliminated.
those goals are achieved.
The system is nevertheless complex and must be accessed
outside of the design system itself. Both of these factors slow
the design process and, in many cases, encourage designers
to bypass the data management system as deadlines loom. A
quick approach of just passing the latest revision to a colleague,
or directly accessing the component information from a
previous design, can save significant time, but puts data integrity
at risk.
On the other hand, checking out the latest design files and
then checking them back in when you’re done, or finding them by Bringing design data
trawling through the appropriate database library, are the correct
methods but are clumsily disconnected from the actual design management into the design
process. This conventional approach to design data management
exists as a supplemental process to the design workflow. It forces process itself allows designers
engineers to leave the design environment to source, deliver or
process design data. to make informed and correct
Since that system is also based on the data from a disparate
set of design tools, with different data structures and versions of choices right from the start of the
the same information, the added complication of conflicting data
is likely to arise. For example, the component data for a device product development process.
might be hosted and interpreted differently in the schematic
capture, PCB and embedded design applications, and therefore
destined for inconsistency. Problems such as missing or outdated
information may only be uncovered during procurement, or
worse, manufacturing.
In short,successfully managing and maintaining the integrity of
all data created in the design of a product is an enormous challenge
for today’s design teams. What’s more, current data management
systems are far from ideal, and tend to pull designers away from
the primary process of using their skills to create innovative and
successful designs. As increased globalization puts the squeeze
on product manufacturing costs and project deadlines, errors and
delays in the design process are becoming more costly through
missed market opportunities.

Restoring order
Taking a broader view of the design data management problem
shows that it is largely centered around two problems: the task
of managing design data from multiple unrelated sources; and
the use of management systems that are disconnected from the
design process.
The first step to resolving the complexity and inconsistency
issues of multiple design data sources is to use a single model of
the project design data. This requires a design system that brings
together all of the electronic design processes into one unified
environment, where the design data can exist as a single entity.

S1 Integrated vs unified design 7

 The single library source approach also offers the potential of
expanding the data content by adding procurement and assembly
information. When parts are placed from the centralized database
library, designers then have access to component parameters that
will streamline the manufacturing process. Any parts with long
lead times will be flagged to avoid manufacturing delays, and
BoMs can be generated from the live database information to
ensure accurate project costing.
As the centralized data pool relates to a single unified design
system, version control becomes equally as easy to implement.
The design files are accessed by the same application and offer
format consistency, making the versioning system simpler to
set up and manage. The design system can be extended with
back-end collaboration servers and plug-in modules that target
specific enterprise applications. If a company is confident that
a full PLM system is justified, its implementation will be
simpler because of the single design data set containing all
relevant information.
Data management at the design level
Regardless of how advanced or potentially effective an imposed
data management system is though, the process will ultimately
fail if the user interface is ineffective. This is the interactive
connection between a designer and the data management
system, and its success will determine if information can be
accessed easily and at the right time. In practice, there’s too
much temptation to bypass an overly complex or cumbersome
system, and relevant information must be available at designers’
fingertips as key design decisions are being made.
To achieve these aims, design management systems need to be
accessible to designers from within their working environment.
Along with access to centralized libraries, the design system itself
needs to support direct interfaces to the version control system
being used by an organization. Designers can then retrieve and
submit design data directly from within their normal design
space, which encourages rigorous data management practices
and streamlines the design file management process.
Perhaps most importantly, however, relevant design
information is then easily available ‘at call’. As a result, designers
can make informed and correct choices at the critical times, such
as at the beginning of the design process where decisions have
8 The Way Forward 2009
A single pool of design
data, accessible by all,
is much simpler and
easier to manage.
a profound effect. Data management then becomes an inherent
part of the creative design process, where it is most effective.
In a unified design system, this immediate access to key
design information is then available to all designers and
downstream users via one design environment. Design reuse and
true collaborative design become practical thanks to the single
source of design data and each designer’s direct access to version
control systems. Procurement, manufacturing, documentation,
mechanical design, marketing and distribution all reach into
that single source of design data, helping to bring products to
market in less time and within budget.
The significant change with this approach is that design data
management becomes an integral part of the design environment,
and therefore a process that works with designers rather than
one that imposes barriers to the process. In the final analysis, the
most brilliant design will not reach the market within budget or
on time (or not at all) if the data management processes fail by
allowing incorrect or corrupt design data to propagate through
the process.
When the design data and its management are simplified
and readily accessible to all those involved in the product
development workflow, the risks and cost of design data errors
become clearer, predictable and manageable. Because designers
also have accurate and relevant design data on hand, they can
easily make informed decisions and refocus on what they do
best: creating innovative electronics designs that will clearly
differentiate a product in the market.
Published: Printed Circuit Design & Fab, US, December ‘08
eSolar:
Developing intelligent digital
controllers to manage complex,
utility-scale solar power stations.
"I looked at several
alternatives to Altium
and found each one
to be lacking in its
capabilities on one area
of design or another.
Altium Designer was the
first package I worked
with that had strong
capabilities in both
schematic capture and
board layout. While all
other vendors offered
an integrated solution,
Altium Designer was the
only one to truly unify
the design process."
Carter Moursund,
Vice President of Engineering,
eSolar
Solar generated energy has long been an
under-used natural resource. However, with worldwide pressures
to develop greener power alternatives, there has been a recent
surge in solar technologies. Headlining this push is eSolar, a US
company providing utility-scale solar power generation facilities.
eSolar applies mass production techniques to create a unique
power plant architecture that is flexible, powerful and affordable.
Considering the unique design of eSolar’s stations, there was
a need to focus on developing an intuitive system that could
address, communicate with and control each individual mirror
among the thousands of mirrors installed in a typical power
plant. As a result, eSolar needed to develop a multifaceted,
compact digital controller that could drive motors and manage
power and communications with several mirrors, all over a
proprietary communication channel.
The development of the digital controllers posed various
challenges. After evaluating several competing systems, eSolar
found that although many systems offered integrated solutions,
each lacked one capability or another. They were not unified
systems. Finding an all-inclusive toolset that could ease the steep
learning curve of a new product proved to be difficult.
In addition, the digital controllers needed to be highly
sophisticated. The unique system of interconnected modules
added complexities to their design requirements. Networking the
several functions of the controllers with the numerous heliostats
needed a strict control environment that could accurately work
with the mirrors for premium performance.
Choosing Altium Designer as its EDA solution, eSolar found
it could avoid the time-consuming, expensive training cycles
that frequently cause development downtime. Engineers
could start the project without delay because of Altium’s
logical user interface and easy-to-use tools and wizards.
The unique unified environment of Altium Designer
let eSolar’s engineers combine the various design
disciplines of hardware, software and programmable
hardware design. This unified approach offered a
clearly defined documentation process, one that
could manage all the project requirements within a
single component database.
By introducing intelligence into its control
systems, eSolar was also able to drastically
reduce installation costs and increase the
efficiency of its solar power generating
stations. The result? A sophisticated and
commercially viable energy alternative that
is competitive with the dominant fossil fuel
industries.
 design
solutions
for tomorrow’s engineers

10 Section Header here S0

Tomorrow’s
electronics
designers
need the
bigger
picture to
Innovate

S0 Section Header here 11

 a
ll engineers like to
be creative. It’s an essential part of
being an engineer. But how many
engineers actually have the time
to create what they envision these
days? There’s a lot of talk about
design solutions that help engineers
move beyond today’s challenges for
creating next generation technology.
Understanding what is needed for
engineers and design solutions is key
to equipping for future innovation.

12 The Way Forward 2009

 Organizations are looking for engineers
who think laterally
Market factors have radically changed the engineering role
from what it was ten years ago. Engineers were more specialized
and usually worked in isolation with little connection to outside
processes. Unfortunately, design approaches haven’t progressed
and still reflect this old paradigm, based on the integration of
different point tools. The problem is that these solutions are now
aging architectures not made for today’s engineering demands.
And they’re just getting harder to use.
Engineers are required to be more dynamic than they
once were and no longer fit into specialized roles to
the same degree as previously. Capable of more abstract
thinking and high-level problem solving, they are also
geographically spread out.
Next generation engineers
are less into repetitive tasks
and are connected. There
are more demands on them
than ever before. Keeping
this workforce relevant
and skilled into the future
has become a top priority
for companies.
Electronics organizations
need better solutions to be
prepared for the future and
move beyond the old ways.
What is needed is a new way
of thinking – a single unified
approach to the entire design
process that models where
development is now. It can
help cope with the demands
of creating the innovation
needed by electronics
companies today, instead of
just managing the complexities. When looking at each part of
this scenario in depth, it’s easy to understand why this conclusion
is probable.
Looking for a business-minded engineer…
A fragmented design process where engineers work as a
silo isn’t effective for developing today’s technology. It’s forcing
companies to take a fresh look at all aspects of workflow
instead of just individual aspects of it and decide if their design
environments are adequately equipped. They need to start with
understanding how the roles of engineers have changed from
the past to know how best to equip them now.
Requiring engineers to take increased responsibility for
customer satisfaction and ultimately business success is
coming into the spotlight. Design organizations are looking
for engineers who show the aptitude to think laterally and be
forward-looking. They need to understand business needs as
well as engineering needs. And they still need to be creative and
innovative in addition to being technically competent across a
variety of disciplines. It’s no small ask.
Those then who can embrace every aspect of board-level
design will play an important part in the strategies of worldwide
companies. Not only can these engineers balance more aspects
of the design process but they can also be involved in multi-
disciplinary project teams. Leadership ability is also being
recognized as essential as many employers look for engineers
who show potential for managing high-priority, complex
projects. This represents a significant value for companies
which need engineers to communicate and understand the
needs of other people outside of their immediate team and
comfort zones.
In short, engineers must be
more business-minded and
responsive than ever before.
They must have enough
savvy to hit the ground
running with their ideas. The
days of working in the dark
and being completely micro-
focused are almost a thing
of the past – having sight
of the big picture, creat-
ing innovation leadership
and customer satisfaction
has become everything.
What’s most suited then for
these engineers is a design
environment that better
enables the skills needed
and allows them to be
fully engaged.
A single view of design
It’s equally important to understand that the boundaries
between hardware and software are becoming increasingly
integrated. Hardware configuration doesn’t drive design anymore.
What is needed is an environment that provides a single design
application and uses a single coherent data model. This allows
key elements of the design to be moved into the soft domain.
Incorporating a ‘soft’ approach offers further advantages such
as a unified methodology, design automation and reuse. It also
allows rapid prototyping and concept exploration without the
upfront commitment of custom designing a board.
Once the design perspective is no longer locked into the hard
domain, the abstraction level that board-level engineers work at
can be raised. This effectively hides the levels of complication
from the engineer, creating a dramatic change of focus.
The engineer can suddenly approach a task from the customer’s
point of view rather than having to make a decision about
hardware configuration before it’s even been decided what the
product will do.
S1 Integrated vs unified design 13
 Time-to- Complexities that once made up the inherently difficult
part of the traditional design approach (i.e., board design) are
downgraded appropriately to something manageable. Focus

market is once again back on product differentiation and innovation

instead of just ‘survival drivers’. A single view covering all aspects
of the design is created.

pressures
Adopting a unified approach allows engineers to focus once
again on innovation and device intelligence, where the real
functionality and value lie. It’s a better approach for today’s
designs that helps engineers overcome design obstacles and

will always focus instead on future innovation.

The solution for the future

be there but A strategically developed environment that offers both

a unified approach and ways for worldwide engineering teams
to be fully engaged will make the most difference moving

the wheel
beyond today’s challenges. Every part of board-level design can
be considered. Engineering teams can work more effectively
as leadership innovation groups. Clearly defined project

will still
languages and definitions enable project teams and engineers
to move beyond technical and cultural barriers. The advantages
aren’t just for the project either; everyone benefits. By being
able to cross different realms of design, engineers themselves

need to be are able to diversify from previous conventional roles by

building additional skill sets.
With diversified workloads and emphasis on design

re-invented innovation, engineers have a greater need than ever for a unified
and single design solution. And companies are focusing on core
product development as a strategy for innovation leadership –
time-to-market pressure will always be there but the wheel will still
need to be reinvented! Since market demands have moved most
design projects beyond the scalability of current methodologies
and approaches today, shouldn’t engineers be equipped with
comparable solutions as well?
Published: Chip Design Magazine, US, October ‘08

14 The Way Forward 2009

NAIST:
Creating innovative electronics for
a radical, autonomously controlled
'flying wing' for search and
rescue work.
"Altium LiveDesign is a
tool of empowerment
for every aspect of
FPGA engineering.
FPGA-based systems
that previously took us
months to develop can
now be done in a week.
Altium Designer has
saved my project and
The Nara Institute of Science and
Technology (NAIST) in Japan is a national university composed
solely of graduate schools, and promotes advanced research and
education in science and technology.
At NAIST, PhD candidate William Rieken has pursued ground-
breaking research into an autonomously controlled Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that features sophisticated imaging systems
designed for search and rescue work. The high-performance UAV
is a radical Elliptical Circular Wing (ECW) design that houses an
impressive array of complex electronics to support onboard video,
telemetry and flight systems. Altium Designer has helped put this
complex project back on schedule.

has put us back The ambitious nature of the search and rescue UAV project
was inspired in part by the tragic events of Japan’s 1995 Kobe
on schedule." earthquake, which highlighted the need for quickly deployed,
William Rieken, vision-linked search and rescue systems that did not endanger the
life of operators. Developing the project’s complex electronics,
Graduate School of mainly involving FPGA embedded systems employing advanced
Information Science, high-speed processing and control systems, required a range of
Nara Institute of Science software solutions and compatible hardware development boards.

and Technology Rieken and his team use Altium Designer to complete all
Japan embedded, hardware and software design in one easy-to-use
unified environment, then investigate and debug the actual
results in real-time using Altium’s embedded test instruments and
NanoBoards. The designers can easily implement IP cores and
source code directly into project FPGAs using Verilog, VHDL and
C, and also at a schematic level with Altium Designer’s supplied
IP logic blocks and processors.
The team has increased the development rate of the project
while concurrently redesigning sections for performance
improvements. For example, the upload and download
speed of the UAV’s onboard transmitter – comprised of
FPGAs and a 1GHz DSP – will now more than double,
while similar performance improvements are expected
in the 1GB data rate of the system’s video engine
backbone. According to Rieken, instigating FPGA
embedded designs that previously took days or weeks
to develop can now be completed in minutes, and the
students in his team are now keen to port many of
their own designs into the FPGA environment.
In its final implementation, the team’s search and
rescue UAV will feature a full 360º vision system
created by processing video signals from a range
of onboard cameras, high-speed data upload
and download links, virtual reality flight control
and observer vision systems, plus enhanced
features such as automatic collision avoidance
and a laser-guided landing system.
16 Section Header here S0
Embedded
design
without
h a r d
barriers

S2 Embedded Design 17
 As the
market-defining
properties of
today’s electronic
products continues
to move into
the software
domain, a design’s
intellectual
property (IP)
is increasingly
characterized
by the unique
‘intelligence’ that
is programmed
into the product.
In turn, the underlying physical hardware that supports the
intelligence is playing a reduced role in defining a product’s
IP. This has changed the fundamental landscape of electronics
design, allowing product developers who work in the software
space to become the prime movers in defining the function and
behavior of today’s electronic products.
The explosion of programmable hardware components such
as FPGAs over the last few years has allowed an even greater
part of the design to move into the soft domain. Not only are
these components becoming more capable, higher in capacity
and more feature-rich, they are becoming significantly cheaper.
The availability of high-capacity, high-performance FPGAs
at relatively low cost has opened up the possibility of using
this technology to change the way designers interact with
hardware and software by extending the concept of programmed
device intelligence from just software, to encompass both
software and hardware.
With this approach the system hardware itself can be defined
in the soft realm – from mass logic through to high-performance
microprocessors and matching system memory – allowing
developers to create whole systems within the reprogrammable
fabric of an FPGA. A much greater portion of the design process
is done in a soft domain, meaning that the defining value of
that product has moved away from the unique properties of the
18 The Way Forward 2009
physical platform. This hardware platform nevertheless supports
the soft elements and forms the interface to the outside world,
and therefore remains a large and crucial part of the electronic
development process – and in the process, takes a proportionally
large share of the product development time and cost.
For all the revolutionary advances in electronics devices
and how electronic products are designed, the process we use
to develop and complete those products has generally failed to
progress at the same pace. We still treat the design of the board-
level hardware separately from the development of the software
that runs on it, and programmable hardware design ends at the
pins of the device – a separate discipline in its own right.
As more of a design is moved into a soft platform, the lines
between the traditional design disciplines such as hardware,
software and FPGA design begin to blur. Dealing with these
design elements independently and with separate tools becomes
increasing difficult and inefficient as design complexity increases
and time-to-market cycles shrink.
The move to higher levels of abstraction within individual
processes helps to cope with specific complexities but at the
same time but increases the specialization required within each
domain. Ultimately, of course, these individual elements of the
design must be brought together to create a final product, but
the increased specialization of each piece is making the final
puzzle much harder to assemble. This blows out design times
and is ultimately to the detriment of product innovation.
A cohesive solution
Rather than a traditional ‘point-tool’ solution of approaching
the design problem as a collection of independent processes that
are eventually linked together, a unified methodology offers a
solution to this complexity barrier by treating the product design
process as a single problem.
Unifying the design processes at a platform level creates
a product development system that can manage design
complexity while harnessing the potential of soft design
within the programmable device realm. Bringing together all the
hardware and software elements of the design process within one
intrinsically connected environment creates a singular design
flow and data model that dramatically simplifies the process.
For example, by exploiting the mutual-awareness and shared
data of the hardware, software and programmable hardware
design processes, a unified design system can seamlessly automate
many of the inter-discipline tasks such as synchronizing the pin
definitions of programmable devices across both the chip and
board-level design spaces, and automatically managing hardware
dependencies between the software and its execution platform.
These things simply can’t be done effectively if the parameters
and constraints controlling the different elements of a design
exist in independent applications.
Importantly, unifying design processes creates an environment
where the abstraction level of those processes can be raised as a
whole, rather than within each separate piece of the traditional
point-tool collection. In this way the complexity of today’s
designs is managed as a whole, creating a new approach to
electronics design where the overall process can be dealt with as
a single higher-level problem.
Through a cohesive abstraction of the processes, unified design
reduces the need for expertise in multiple design disciplines
and the use of multiple different tools. It also reduces the level
of low-level hardware design and system software needed by
The combination of a unified design
system and a reconfigurable hardware
platform opens the possiibility for
embedded developers to create an entire
electronic product without custom
hardware design.
 

S2 Embedded Design 19
 Existing design skills
can be used beyond
traditional design
boundaries
design specialists. For example, within a unified environment
it is possible to insert a section of pre-designed electronics into
the design project and have this functionality manifested across
the whole design, from PCB layout and schematic hierarchy
through to the embedded FPGA elements.
Redefining the hardware platform
The emergence of a soft design paradigm, which can be
fully harnessed within a unified design system and large-
scale programmable devices, decreases the need to imbue the
physical hardware platform part of the design – in practice
the PCB assembly – with unique, market-defining IP. This
shift in emphasis means that the energy expended on full
custom hardware development at the board level does not add
to the overall value of the final product, with the PCB simply
becoming a host for the design’s intelligent devices and a set
of standardized physical interfaces needed to connect the
programmed intelligence to the ‘outside world’.
It makes sense then to consider the viability of an ‘off-the-
shelf ’ approach the problem of hardware design where the
programmed intelligence of a product, once developed, is simply
20 Section Header here S0
lifted from the development environment and programmed
into a tailored, off-the-shelf hardware platform. This is possible
within a unified design environment because the design system
can manage the low-level hardware dependencies to ensure
the software and programmable hardware make the right
connections to the targeted physical environment.
Using this approach a designer could choose from a range of
targeted basic hardware platforms – say a handheld application,
an industrial device, a consumer application or a rack-mount
piece of equipment – customize that platform by plugging
in a range of special purpose modules that contain fixed and
programmable components, then simply download the custom
design intelligence into it to provide a product solution ready
to go to market. It could be considered as Commercial Off-
The-Shelf (COTS) hardware, but thanks to the potential of
high-capacity FPGAs the capabilities effectively cover software,
hardware and programmable hardware – sufficient to develop
then create a complete and viable product.
This concept enables someone who doesn’t have the necessary
hardware skills for custom PCB design – let’s say a hardware-
savvy embedded developer – to build a production-ready
By using a hardware development platform based on changeable FPGA and
peripheral boards, the entire design can be created in real hardware and
debugged on the fly, without the need for custom PCB design.
intelligent electronic device. Once your intent is captured in the
unified design system, the programmable facilities available on
the host board and its modules can be used to configure the entire
platform. In practice, this means automatically ‘connecting’ the
fixed hardware resources together as needed and creating the
additional embedded hardware necessary to provide a suitable
application platform.
Regardless of its physical properties, an off-the-shelf
reconfigurable hardware platform provides a targeted system
into which both hardware and software can be programmed. This
speeds development of soft designs and reduces, or potentially
eliminates, the task involved in custom PCB design. In the case
where there is a need to convert the system to a single dedicated
Application Specific Circuit Board (ASCB), for mechanical
‘fit’ reasons for example, then the ability to easily outsource the
required board layout work is greatly facilitated by having the
design already implemented, tested and working.
At a fundamental level, the combined flexibility of a
reconfigurable hardware platform and unified design system
allows you to commit to hardware decisions much later in the
design cycle and update or interactively change the design
at any time, without time or cost penalties. This, reinforced
by the inherent portability of designs created within such an
environment, has a profound effect on product design cycles.
It streamlines hardware design, opens the door to concurrent
software and hardware development, and raises design
abstraction to a level where existing design skills can be used
beyond traditional design boundaries.
Ultimately though it has the potential to commoditize the
concept of commercial reconfigurable off-the-shelf hardware
as a means to bring a wide range of products to market,
and to allow designers and companies to create innovative
products without having to design – or pay someone to design
– custom hardware or application-specific circuit boards. As
designs move further into the soft realm, a unified approach
to off-the-shelf hardware will allow designers, regardless
of their hardware development expertise, to quickly implement
systems that deliver the device intelligence needed to achieve
true product differentiation in the market.
Published: Embedded.com, US, October ‘07 and Programmable DesignLine, US,
October ‘07
S2 Embedded Design 21
22 The Way Forward 2009
FREEDOM
OF CHOICE
Real evolutionary change occurs when innovative
engineering minds have access to design tools
that provide new ways to use technology and
deliver possibilities in unrestricted ways...

S2 Embedded Design 23
The ongoing
evolution of
the electronics
design industry is,
in a fundamental
and historical
sense, directly
coupled to
advances in
semiconductor
device technology.
W
ith each successive technology step, however,
the real evolutionary change in product design
occurs when the new device technology has
been exploited to its full potential. This happens
when innovative engineering minds have access to design tools
that not only provide new ways to use the technology, but also
deliver those possibilities in unrestricted and accessible ways.
The arrival of affordable microprocessors, originally
conceived as a more effective way to produce pocket calculators,
signaled the possibility of using software code to enhance and
add functionality to products. However, it was the innovative
application of those new devices using higher-level language
tools that really created the revolution, by allowing a soft-centric
approach to design.
By exploiting the full range of design possibilities, engineers
were able to move large portions of hardware logic into the
changeable software realm. The functional ‘intelligence’ that
defines product value began its move into the soft domain,
driven by engineers who harnessed the tools and technology to
its full extent.
Today, the emergence of low-cost, high-capacity
programmable devices such as FPGAs has delivered the next
revolution in the way we design. These allow the intelligent
portions of the design to encompass not only software in the
traditional sense, but also ‘soft’ hardware implemented within
an FPGA. By harnessing this technology beyond its basic
potential as a mere container for glue logic, a product’s unique
functional aspects – and therefore its competitive advantage in
the market – can be defined in the changeable soft realm.
Embedded system designers now have a new design canvas
that can be used to create innovative new products. As a fully
reconfigurable design platform to host a ‘soft’ design methodology,
FPGAs provide the means to unprecedented levels of design
freedom, thanks in part to a vast array of available IP cores that
include logic blocks, peripherals and microprocessors. These can be
changed at will as the design requirements evolve, critical design
decisions can be locked down later in the design cycle, and both a
product’s software and hardware can be updated in the field.
When used to its full potential, an inclusively ‘soft’ approach
to design delivers a new freedom to the product development
process. Harnessing that capability to create products that
offer true differentiation in the market means overcoming
the implementation challenges the technology presents. The
success of this is inexorably linked with the evolution of the
design tools we use.
Introducing… limitations
In conventional design flows, the design opportunities offered
by programmable devices invariably come with the legacy
of increased complexity in the overall product development
process. The new layer – or ‘domain’ – introduced into the
product development toolchain is traditionally based on an
embedded hardware development toolset that is both separate
and disconnected from the existing design process. This not only
creates significant complexity when integrating the separate
FPGA-based sections into the overall product design, but also
introduces a new set of design skills that you need to learn to
make use of the embedded development tools.
The main reason for these challenges lies in the genealogy of
conventional IDE (Integrated Development Environment) tools,
which have their roots in the ASIC design world where HDLs
(Hardware Description Languages) are used to describe a chip’s
hardware design prior to manufacture. Using a conventional IDE
toolchain means working with an isolated design environment
and becoming an HDL specialist, while applying a working
knowledge of the target FPGA’s underlying architecture.
Most commonly, the IDE is a proprietary toolchain from
the FPGA device vendors. These are developed to support each
vendor’s products and encourage sales, but are understandably
devoid of support for competitors’ products. Using a vendor
IDE restricts the inherent flexibility and freedom of embedded
hardware design by limiting the range of FPGA devices, vendor
IP cores and design methodologies you can use. What’s more, if
you change the programmable device that’s hosting your design
you’re back to square one.
In practice, the partisan nature of the development tools
significantly compromises the available design choices that can
be explored in the pursuit of innovation.
Vendor-neutral design
To open up the full range of design possibilities in today’s
embedded design process, what’s needed is a programmable
device development environment that allows you to easily target
a wide variety of devices from different vendors. By creating a
design environment from the ground up that is independent
of vendor or device, the door opens to the full range of target
possibilities, freeing embedded developers to choose the best
possible device for the current design.
Such a system is also inherently neutral in the embedded
design itself which allows the target device to be changed
without compromising the validity of the source design files. As
a result the target device can be changed at will and the final
choice made much later in the design process, when its required
specifications are more clearly understood. The embedded
design process can proceed while all the device options are still
available, removing the need to develop the hardware before
serious embedded design can start.
A design system that is independent of vendor also offers a
greater range of IP cores by allowing you to simply change the
target device to achieve compatibility with a desirable vendor-
sourced core, such as a target-specific, high-performance
microprocessor. If the system’s device-neutral framework is
harnessed to develop libraries of IP cores, the resulting blocks of
soft hardware can exhibit the same neutral persona as the system.
This introduces the compelling prospect of using a neutral 32-
bit microprocessor core for the initial development work, then
changing that IP block to a vendor-supplied core at a later time
– with minimal impact on the work already done.
The success of this approach lies, in part, in the availability
of system updates that add new device hardware support. The
latest programmable devices can freely be used in your designs
along with fully compatible IP cores from the system libraries.
The latest ‘soft’ and discrete microprocessors, along with
those embedded into the fabric of the FPGA, can also
be supported because the system’s embedded software
toolchains are also updated.
Designing in a truly vendor-neutral product development
environment delivers the freedom to easily explore all
design possibilities. As the design progresses, the full choice
of programmable device, microprocessors and IP cores can
be exploited to create the most competitive product,
without compromise.
S2 Embedded Design 25
 Designing
in the soft
domain
provides
a blank
canvas for
innovation
and creativity.

26 Section Header here S0


Clarity through abstraction
Along with restrictive device and IP possibilities of
conventional embedded design flows, the arcane nature of
HDL-based design capture – considered analogous to assembly
language in complexity – demands specialist skills and distracts
engineers from focusing on innovative design.
What’s needed here is a system that raises the abstraction of
the design process so that design engineers can work at a higher
level, while using and expanding their existing design skills. The
potential exists for high-level embedded design methodologies
that allow engineers from all disciplines (hardware and software)
to simply connect together pre-verified IP blocks in a way that is
not only accessible, but hides the underlying complexity of the
device architecture.
By offering design interfaces that are graphically based,
or based on schematics, the process of embedded design
is streamlined without the need for specialist HDL skills
(although HDL entry can also be incorporated). When this
system exists as a vendor-neutral embedded design environment,
the process of changing processors, peripherals and memory
potentially becomes simple block-level manipulation via a
graphical interface.
The primary advantage of the system is that designers are
free to focus on the essence of a product’s development – its
functional ‘soft’ intelligence. High-level interface choices easily
capture the design intent, without complexity and distraction.
When incorporated in a system that supports familiar high-
level design paradigms at a native level, the underlying hardware
complexity is effectively hidden. Embedded hardware abstraction
can include advanced IP interface systems such as the Wishbone
bus and hardware interface IP cores that introduce transparent
interconnect layers around processors, peripherals and memory.
With the low-level interface architecture supporting design
interfaces that reduce complexity, embedded system design can
virtually become an exercise in ‘joining the dots’.
Freedom through unity
Moving beyond a conventional IDE-based design flow
can introduce a valuable expansion in the choices available
to designers while providing innovative new ways to create
embedded designs. This is provided by an embedded hardware
design system that is independent of vendor or device and offers
MCU
INTERCON_MEM
IO MEM
INTERCON_IO MULTIMASTER
ASU
PORTIO VGA SRAM
High-level design capture systems that automatically deal
with the underlying hardware complexity free designers to
focus on innovation.
a high level of design abstraction, but how that system connects
into the rest of the design environment is also important.
For that to be fully effective, the design abstraction and
open device choice needs to be reflected though the entire
product development chain, so that the traditionally complex
process of bringing all the design elements together (hardware,
software and programmable hardware) becomes simplified
and transparent.
A unified design system delivers this by bringing all of the
design domains together into a single and cohesive application.
Design models become single entities across all domains,
allowing (for example) library IP blocks to encompass multiple
device support, graphical models and hardware interface layers.
Changes in the embedded design can be directly transferred to
relevant domains using high-level automated processes such as
FPGA pin optimization. This is possible because all parts of the
design process share the same, single model of the design data.
Taking the unified vendor-independent design environment
to its logical next step means encompassing those attributes
in an associated hardware development platform. A hardware
platform that is independent of vendor or device (possible
through a system of plug-in FPGA boards) and communicates
directly with the unified application can reflect the needed
flexibility and open design choice into the physical world. The
design iterations needed to refine and debug your design project
can appear in real hardware, in real time, which also reduces the
needed for design simulation.
When such a reconfigurable hardware platform unifies with
the overall design system, the device and IP design choices you
make can transparently flow through the whole design chain,
from design capture through to physical hardware. The entire
product development system is then unified and cohesive.
If the design environment also offers high levels of design
abstraction, system developers are no longer restricted by the
choice of devices and the method used to capture the design
intent. The end result is an open approach to embedded system
development that frees designers to focus on the essence of
design – creating the functional device intelligence that provides
true product differentiation.
Published: cieonline.com.co.uk, UK June ‘08 and EDN, US, June ‘08
S2 Embedded Design 27
28 The Way Forward 2009
SAME
H A R DWA R E
DIFFERENT
A P P L I C AT I O N

S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 29

 WHAT HAPPENED Most electronic product designers are asking themselves that
these days, concerned they need to know more about technology

TO THE FUN
than they ever needed to know before. If that wasn’t enough,
larger industry trends like globalization of manufacturing and
off-shoring are happening at unprecedented rates, leaving most
wondering how to also contend with setting themselves apart

PART OF ELECTRONICs from the crowd, reducing their investment and getting their
product to market in shorter times.

DESIGN?
Design methodologies and production environments
today are still stuck in the past. The design manufacturing
vision of twenty years ago was never intended for modern
demands of short-production cycles and high variety – based
on the specialization and division of functionality with
little thought for future innovation or growth. Designers
forced to lock designs to specific programmable chips for
manufacture at the start of the process make critical decisions
about the hardware without being certain about the performance
of it. The non-recurring costs of development such as
researching, designing and testing of new products, once

30 The Way Forward 2009


an integral part of creating a product’s innovative edge, now
shift overall focus and effort more onto meeting time-to-
market. Ironically, the results drive real innovation and growth
out of the design process.
Product intelligence is the new focus
This traditional approach of putting development of the
hardware platform first with soft aspects built in and locked
down isn’t practical anymore, creating a false sense of security in
time-to-market as an important product differentiator. Whereas
value that does differentiate a product (i.e., device intelligence or
‘IP’) is effectively tied to a rigid platform, both being the most
difficult and costliest design elements to change.
Instead, why not put the soft elements first and at the
center of the development process? This seemingly simplistic
paradigm shift creates a dramatic change of focus. By separating
function from the fixed physical hardware, key elements
of design are moved into the soft domain. No longer locked
into the hard domain, they can be abstracted to a higher
Device intelligence
enables product
‘ecosystems’ to be
created, fostering
deeper relationships
between suppliers
and their customers,
improved service
efficiency and
quicker updates.
level where the designer can suddenly approach a design task
from the customer’s point of view rather than having to
make a decision about hardware configuration before it’s
even been decided what the product will do. A single view
of the design is created thus covering all aspects of electronic
design and not just one isolated part of it.
Soft IP focus opens the door then for other additional
advantages such as bringing unification to the overall
design process, allowing the benefit of technologies such as
large-scale programmable chips, and moving beyond the current
loosely integrated point tools and a paradigm of fixed and
outdated options!
Soft design expands to include hardware
FPGAs as embedded platforms with soft processors
are gaining momentum as the basis of more versatile and
reconfigurable hardware platforms. Becoming more popular as
their capabilities rise, they’re also easier on the budget. Expanding
soft design of these platforms is including an increasing amount
of what were once the hardware aspects. Intellectual property
programmed into the soft design system is fast becoming the
most valuable part of the design, giving rise to architectural
flexibility, and smaller, more adaptable boards.
Device IP then that can be programmed into the system,
rather than manufactured on the board, will offer the most
advantages in this brave new world. Soft design can start
before the hardware platform is designed. It can continue after
the hardware is designed, and even after it reaches customers.
From a long-term perspective, field ‘upgrades’ become possible,
opening up a way for the customer to connect not only to the
vendor themselves but also much bigger, electronic, ecosystems.
Complexities that once created the inherently difficult
part of the traditional design approach (i.e., board design) are
downgraded appropriately to something more manageable
and focus is once again back on product differentiation and
innovation instead of just ‘survival drivers’!
S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 31
 this new approach
provides long-
term sustainability
for organizations
building electronic
products... and perhaps
even a little more fun
for designers in
the process.
Interestingly enough, the implications for a soft design
centric approach of all electronic systems extends beyond even
the software. Designers can compare performance benefits and
trade-offs of different FPGAs without changing their design
and without the commitment. Follow this thinking a bit further
and we see that not only can the software be upgraded but also
the hardware.
Device intelligence with or without
hardware design
Perhaps the biggest driver for change is the familiar connectivity
of ‘everything to everything’, which is so dramatically changing
the role of technology in our lives. For example, you wouldn’t
need to look any further than a humble digital picture frame as
an example to illustrate the need for creating device intelligence
independent of the hardware. Lots of people have them and lots
of companies supply them. Many digital picture frames can read
their photos from memory cards or USB keys, but by adding
additional connectivity and advanced graphics using a powerful
unified design environment to upgrade the hardware’s platform,
a company could offer something more and extend the basic
capability of the single physical hardware platform to include
wireless digital streaming of photos and other content from
hard drives or the Internet. Since the streaming occurs though
the same functional interfaces, there is no need to change the
hardware. In fact, it’s better if it doesn’t.
A similar example on a larger scale would be a broadband
broadcasting company that wishes to provide more targeted
advertisements to particular audiences and provide upgraded
video quality as a part of improved services to their customers –
differentiating themselves from competitors providing the same
broadcasting communications. Of course the immediate result
32 The Way Forward 2009
is improved customer satisfaction, but the natural progression is
that this solution provides the basis of connecting the customer
to a larger ecosystem and opening increased potential for
creating a long-term relationship.
It’s worth mentioning that many areas of scientific research
have long required both real-time signal processing power
combined with FPGA-based upgradeable and modular
hardware. Not only can these platforms handle moderate
to high-bandwidth problems and computations, but rapid
development and design reuse makes research easier. In a project
involving laser optical time transfers, being able to deploy the
latest technologies by changing hardware and equipment to
match evolving research requirements allowed new projects to
be launched faster, and the researchers to be more responsive
to ever-changing design requirements – it certainly would not
have been as easy on a traditional hardware platform and using
conventional design approaches.
You may get a sense that one common theme weaving
through all of this is that as device IP becomes more
differentiated, hardware becomes less so. It’s not hard then
to imagine customized hardware soon becoming a remnant
of past technology as more emphasis goes into sustainable
design processes based on device intelligence that can deliver
better results. A single hardware platform could effectively
have multiple applications offering long-term design savings,
inventory consolidation and the streamlining of production
processes not possible with software alone.
Another repeating theme is that whole device development
can happen in the soft domain. Device subsystems can be
developed with or without the hardware dependency, separating
function from the fixed physical hardware and deployed when
needed. Rapid prototyping to develop a sense of how you would
actually approach a design and the costs of production would be
possible in the same amount of time that you would normally
spend chasing up datasheets. Product lines can be more easily
updated and extended, and existing projects can be reused,
meaning fewer development hours. Hardware need only be built
once and upgraded later.
Aesthetics and ease of use aren’t to be overlooked either.
Customers are demanding that products look cool and be
desirable in addition to being functional. Interfaces need to be
attractive and easy to use. Products need to connect automatically
to related equipment and peers as connected ecosystems become
the new norm for the future. Products need to be intuitive
enough that capabilities can be explored without reading the
manual, and to be easily updated soon after deployment.
An implied requirement of being able to deliver these kinds
of systems is the ability to use state-of-the-art design tools that
unify the embedded development process. More importantly,
it means identifying a solution provider that has a strong
commitment to innovation and continuous development.
The unified design environment has
sustainable merit
When device intelligence comes first in the design process,
it’s possible to move away from old paradigms and towards
device connectivity. Obviously some larger organizations, such
as those that use medical imaging, have been successfully using
electronic ecosystems for awhile. The idea isn’t new, it’s just been
limited. But the clear suggestion is to bring this capability into
the hands of every designer, and not just a select few. Why?
 Because device intelligence and connectivity enables
electronics designers and their organizations to create systems
that provide longer-term relationships with customers in ways
that go beyond improved services or expected upgrades. They
only require the right design environment.
Can a single tool provide a single approach to all phases
of electronics design? Exploring choices invariably leads to a
design environment that also has a reconfigurable hardware
platform built in for that crucial implementing, debugging and
updating phase of development with freedom to experiment
with various vendor devices and swap I/O hardware in and
out. All the necessary tools for every aspect of electronic design
would be included – processor-independent embedded coding
and debugging, mixed schematic and HDL-based FPGA design
and synthesis, as well as full PCB layout. Software engineers
with only a basic understanding of hardware could use it.
Hardware engineers could focus on designing and prototyping
unique elements of design easily because not only would the
software be upgradeable, but the hardware as well.
Requiring only minimal effort then to move the final design
to production, off-the-shelf, reconfigurable hardware platforms
can become the deployment mechanism bringing products to
market quickly and without the need for full, custom board
designs. Take this one step further and embedded engineers can
create designs in hardware and dynamically deploy their efforts to
physical hardware without even having to go to manufacture.
No more sacrificing design innovation to meet development
deadlines means focus once again goes back into building the
best customer experience possible – providing real long-term
sustainability for organizations building electronic products, and
perhaps even a little more fun for designers in the process.
Published: Electronic & Computer Design World, China, July ‘08, EEPW,
China, July ‘08, Electronics News, Australia, July 2008 and A3 Volt, Austria,
September, ‘08
S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 33
 the hand of electronics design

34 The Way Forward 2009

Companies
that don’t
take note of
how design
is changing
may
make the
wrong bet...

S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 35

 he necessity of creating
and maintaining leadership in
technology innovation has never
been more essential to survive
today’s business climate. Economic
downtrends are aggressively
challenging electronics companies
to consider dramatic solutions
within a market that is also
becoming more complex. Employing
cost-effective strategies such as
outsourcing for lower design costs
and manufacturing partners are
only just the beginning. Old design
philosophies are being left behind,
unable to deliver the sustainable
differentiation and innovation
required for the future.

36 The Way Forward 2009

...those that
It used to be that electronic product design companies
could rely on deeply entrenched market presence to keep a
competitive edge. They now find themselves revaluating every
part of their organizations. Beneficial strategies such as using

continue
new design approaches and creating more effective engineering
environments are being incorporated by electronics companies
into product design at every level. As a result, it’s changing the
shape that design models are likely to have in the future.

to fall back Soft design is next generation technology

Since the arrival of cost-effective microprocessors, electronic
products have advanced in device intelligence exponentially.

onto old
This programmed intelligence or ‘soft’ part of the design is
what is really responsible for the product’s value today – the
true differentiator for gaining market advantage rather than
the physical platform it’s sitting on. In comparison, board
geometries have become faster and smaller but creating custom

philosophies board designs has evolved to become the more significant

and time-consuming challenge of product development. As a
result, there is a diminishing return of investment on this part

are more
of the design.
Relying then on traditional ways that put the physical
hardware first in light of current market changes and drivers
seems risky. Designing electronics isn’t straightforward anymore

likely to end
as the boundaries between traditional disciplines of hardware
and software become increasingly blurred. Dealing with design
elements independently and using yesterday’s methodologies
and point tools treats the design process as a fragmented

up with the
collection of approaches. It doesn’t put device intelligence, the
most valuable part, at the center. Effectively, this pushes our
focus towards managing increasing design complexity and away
from innovation.

losing hand
It’s a design model that has disillusioned many electronic
product companies as being far from ideal.
Instead, soft elements should be first in the development
process. This shift creates a dramatic change of focus. In
separating function from the fixed physical hardware, key
elements of design can be moved into the soft domain. No
longer locked into the hard domain, they can be abstracted to a
higher design level. An engineer can suddenly approach a design
task from the customer’s point of view rather than having to
make a decision about hardware configuration before it’s even
been decided what the product will do. A single view of the
design covering all aspects of electronics design is created then
and not just one isolated part of it.
The potential for more of the design process to be soft
increases with using high capacity programmable devices, and
at costs relatively lower than traditional counterparts. More
importantly a design approach where device intelligence is
placed at the center is realized, unifying design methodologies
instead of fragmenting them.
A soft design approach allows additional advantages over
traditional models based largely on vendor-specific hardware
platforms such as complete design synchronization and reuse.
What was once manufactured into a device as part of the
physical hardware and usually performed by a highly specialized
engineer can suddenly be programmed. At the most fundamental
level, FPGA-hosted soft processors can deliver unprecedented
architectural flexibility plus reduced complexity with the end
result of smaller, simpler boards – compelling large-scale business
advantages. And by bringing as much hardware as possible into

S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 37


the soft, programmable realm, iterative approaches that allow
experimentation of ‘what if ’ scenarios without increasing design
times can be explored.
More companies feel they can’t afford to ignore alternative
approaches for riding the changes that new and emerging
technologies will bring. Soft design is making a lot of sense
and progressively coming into its own. Considering external
pressures, hardware-based design is too constrained and clearly
not cutting it. Business strategies need to actively plan for
internal changes that include innovation as well as return on
investment (ROI) because the market is changing too quickly
to know if long-term plans will be enough.
Strategies for innovation, not investment
Strategies then that focus on innovation for achieving
product differentiation are just as important as those for ROI,
and in certain respects more important. Distinct advantages
need to be evident and realized immediately and not just in
five years time. Companies need to re-evaluate existing design
strategies and decide if they can accomplish more with a new
design philosophy. Whether or not current strategies can effect
the necessary changes for innovation can be easily determined.
Does the existing strategy include the ownership of
intellectual property (IP)? This is a big one. A traditional model
where many people collaborate throughout the design process
makes the claim of ownership tenuous. In a market where
38 The Way Forward 2009
A unified approach frees
designers to focus on
creativity and innovation
– where product value
really lies.
products can be reverse-engineered as fast as they are created,
the majority of effort should be on creating functionality and
not just hardware. If improving product differentiation forms
the basis of sustaining innovation and longevity of board design,
then ownership is everything!
Embracing every aspect of board-level design is another
important strategy, taking full advantage of the growing
requirement for engineers to be multifaceted. Engineers are
expected to be able to do more and balance more aspects of the
design process than before. As an example, the 2008 Embedded
Market Study from Tech Insights/Embedded Systems Design
reports that the average number of software engineers to
hardware engineers has more than doubled – a revealing statistic
about the changing role of engineers in today’s design process!
Not only do companies need to provide environments that
engage their engineering talent in differing design approaches,
but they also need to do so in such a way that allows them to
be fully focused creating device intelligence. This in turn helps
engineers diversify from conventional roles by building skill sets
which ultimately feed back to the company as both short and
long-term gains.
Having design unified as a single process makes team
communication and workflows easier. The traditional model
relies heavily on a silo form of communication where groups of
people work independently of each other and have no visibility
or knowledge of the needs of another group. When close cross-
 OLD WAY
Most design tools today are still based on the integration of various point tools which don’t
focus on device intelligence.
collaboration is required, communicating this way can be slow
and inefficient. It might eventually result in a better board
design, but it’s hardly the ideal approach needed for continuous
innovation and getting to market faster.
Lastly, being able to reconfigure soft processors offers
product delivery advantages such as having multiple points
of contact with customers, making updates at any time and
licensing flexibility. These are of particular value to internet
and wireless technologies. Reprogrammable devices also let
engineers ‘see’ what they develop as an instant proof of concept.
This allows exploring different ways of achieving results that are
cost-effective without being committed to a specific form of
implementation. At each point in the development process, the
company has tangible ownership which translates into definable
value and increased options. It may even open up additional
business avenues later.
Only minimal effort then is required to move the final
design to production which brings products to market quicker.
Strategies that include off-the-shelf, reconfigurable hardware
platforms as part of the deployment mechanism avoid the need
for full, custom board designs except when necessary.
Staying ahead in the game
Many design approaches still rely on integrating various
point tools instead of putting mutual-interest technologies
into a single solution. But going with these puts you back in
NEW WAY
the old design school-silo model and it doesn’t focus on device
intelligence. These approaches can’t keep you ahead in the
innovation game. In today’s market, it’s important to do more
than just survive and continue managing complexity. Strategies
need to put innovation first in the design process which then
achieves real ROI.
A company can boost their mainstream development
significantly by allowing all aspects of electronic product
development to be designed and managed within a single
system. This effectively speeds the transition from design to
production. A unified approach allows designers to focus on
higher-level applications, see the product as they are building it
and reuse both their existing work and third-party technology.
All of which is without sacrificing innovation or increasing
design times.
Market drivers are compelling us to make choices about how
we will deal with changes and may well force the issue. Current
economic downtrends can be seen as more of an opportunity
to break away from a piecemeal approach and towards one that
is viable for continuous and sustained innovation in electronics
design. It’s a situation where companies that don’t take note
of how design is changing and continue falling back onto old
philosophies are more likely to end up with the losing hand to
those who do.
Published: Industrial Control DesignLine, Europe, September ‘08; EE Times,
China, September ‘08; and Elektronik I Norden, Norway, October ‘08
S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 39
 In a highly competitive global industry,
where change is inevitable and innovation rules,
the time has come for a hard, fresh look at the
way we design electronics products.

40 The Way Forward 2009

S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 41
 Take
a break for a moment
and clear your thoughts of the
project you’re working on. Now,
focus on the dynamic industry you work in and ask yourself
where the market-competitive value of your designs actually lies,
and where should it be in the future. The answer – invariably
in the ‘soft’ elements of those designs – is a direct reflection of
the state of the electronics design industry itself, which, by its
very nature, is in a condition of rapid and ongoing evolutionary
change. Maintaining the competitive, differentiating edge in
your designs means it’s essential to recognize and embrace those
changes by evolving the way you design – the alternative is to
watch the industry pass you by.
Now contemplate what the design industry will be like
twelve months or even two years from now. Like everyone in
the industry you’ll have an opinion on this, because it’s a key
factor of business success and in some cases sheer survival. That
future view will be markedly different from today – which is a
given – but perhaps the real question is how will you and your
company adapt to that change? And have you actually begun to
cope with trends in the industry as it stands today?
The current state of the industry and the changing design
landscape provide key indicators that help us all come to
grips with those questions and highlights a series of
developments that are profoundly influencing the future path of
electronic design.

The framework of change

Perhaps the foremost reality for the electronics industry is
the world-scale revolution in the way many products, or key
elements of those products, are now designed, manufactured
and distributed. The effect of this change is all around you, in
the form of low-cost electronic products that have now become
‘commodity’ items. Irrespective of their development origins,
they have been transformed from a unique product to a universal,
low-cost product that applies to a worldwide market.
Whether it’s a DVD player, industrial controller or a display
sub-assembly, globalization – the move to a single, highly
competitive world marketplace – creates an environment where
commodity products pour onto the world market from the
most cost-effective manufacturing regions. For both big and
small companies worldwide this also opens the opportunity to
outsource cost-sensitive processes, typically manufacturing and
distribution, on a world scale. This move to ‘off-shoring’ and the
general trend to global product commoditization has generated
entire categories of products that can only be differentiated from
each other on price.
Along with the breakdown of localized market strategies and
the continuing chase for lower production costs, the electronics
industry is undergoing an era of unprecedented technological
change. This has been driven by factors such as the increasing
‘connectivity’ of electronic products and, in particular, the advent
of low-cost, large-scale programmable devices.
In short, reprogrammable devices such as FPGAs
have created a revolution in the way products are
designed by offering an open-ended platform for
creating complex ‘soft’ hardware in the programmable design
space. Along with the possibilities this creates it has also
heralded an area of multidisciplinary design where each
of the traditional design processes must intimately and
coherently interact.
The result is an expansion – and marked increase in complexity
– of traditional electronics design tools and added pressure on
design engineers to extend their skill-base and knowledge to
deal with the revolving door of new technology. These factors
conspire to place electronics designers in a position of using an
expanded set of traditional design paradigms that struggle to
cope with this new complexity.
In the final analysis the drive to reduce costs for a price-
competitive market edge can only compromise the quality
of design content, hardware and, most importantly, the level
of unique innovation that can be instilled in a product. This
coupled with the pressure to reduce design cycle times – driven
by the need to get to market ahead of competitors – means
today’s designers are forced to develop products in ways that do
not harness the most valuable skills in their armory: innovation
and vision.
To break down the barriers that stand in the way of fully
harnessing the latest technology we need to take a critical look
at electronics design, how the process is currently tackled and
how it must change.

42 The Way Forward 2009

Exploring design myths
Conventional thinking in today’s market suggests that valid
product differentiators are the ability to produce a product at
Programmable devices such
the lowest possible cost and in the least time. On the surface
this seems a reasonable strategy, but these factors should not be as FPGAs have revolutionized
confused with real product differentiators that are sustainable.
The reality is they are company ‘survival drivers’ rather than the way we design by allowing
factors that deliver a long-term competitive advantage in today’s
market, or that of the future. the majority of hardware
Let’s take the familiar ‘time-to market’ factor for example,
which must be short as a basic business requirement, but is
commonly thought of as a path to competitive success – beat
(including processors, memory
the opposition into the market and you’ve achieved a critical,
dominating edge. On the contrary, all getting to market first
and peripheral blocks) to be
will deliver is a product differentiation ‘window’, which is simply
a time period when you have a product or feature that your instantiated as embedded
competitor does not.
Unfortunately, this is a temporary achievement by its very ‘soft’ hardware.
nature, since other market players will follow and that perceived
advantage is negated. A more worrying aspect of this approach

S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 43

 though, is that a single-minded drive to be first to market
will inevitably quash innovation and compromise product
development quality, which is a high price to pay for a short-
term competitive advantage.
In a similar way, focusing on low-cost manufacturing as a path
to competitive success leads to a direct confrontation with the
realities of today’s global market. Again, only one player can offer
the perceived advantage of offering a product at the lowest price,
and it’s only a matter of time before an even cheaper alternative
arrives on the market to hijack that product differentiator. Low-
cost manufacture, like short product development times, is a
basic requirement of doing business rather than a sustainable
competitive edge in today’s industry.
Real and sustainable product differentiation lies in the way a
product looks, feels and functions. A product’s look and feel –
the form of the design – make it stand out from its competitors
through a unique identity. While this is important, its value
as a sustainable differentiator is diluted by the fact that it’s
relatively easy to copy. Where the true long-term value lies is
in the functional aspects of the design, which determine the
way it operates and interacts with the customer, and the way
it connects the customer to you and the rest of the world – this
in turn is determined by the more secure ‘soft’ elements of the
design, which host the product’s functional ‘intelligence’.
44 The Way Forward 2009
Design conventions
Beyond the business marketing strategies that affect how
products are designed it’s also worth critically looking at
the traditional understanding of the processes involved. The
increasing use of programmable devices and a soft-centric
approach to design has challenged many of the fundamental
tenets of the electronic design process.
Take for example the historically linked concept that
electronic product design is a linear, sequential process that starts
with the physical hardware and progresses to the software that
resides on it. This design paradigm has its roots in the concept
that the board layout defines the value of a design – which
indeed it did, many years ago – and software adds functionality
to that platform. Today, this traditional design methodology and
the tools that support it force designers to lock in the choice
of hardware, including programmable devices, at the beginning
of the design cycle. The soft elements of the design – both
programmable hardware and embedded software – can then
be implemented on that hardware platform, but within the
restrictions of the selected hardware devices.
To be blunt, this is now all backwards. Since the true value of
today’s products is increasingly defined by the soft elements of
the design, this is the focal point of product development and the
place to start. The physical hardware platform needed to support

that design intelligence should be created later or along the way,
as its requirements become clearer and more fully understood.
In this way the software base and performance requirements of
the final design are no longer restricted by the choice of devices
and hardware, freeing designers to focus and innovate in the
area that delivers meaningful product differentiation within the
market – the functional intelligence of that design.
The overall perception of today’s design practices is in many
ways based on the outdated concept that the essence of a design
– its core software and programmable hardware elements – is
inescapably linked with the physical hardware platform that
supports it. A fundamental, fixed bond between that design
IP and the hardware it resides on is a concept that fails under
scrutiny as design moves into the soft domain of programmable
hardware and embedded software, where the IP is being
progressively disconnected from the physical platform it resides
on. The platform now primarily acts as a vessel for the defining
soft elements of a design and provides hardware peripherals to
interface that intelligence to the outside world.
With the very essence of a design – the device intelligence
and its encompassed functional elements – existing in the soft
domain, the necessity of a custom-designed PCB is also squarely
under the spotlight. As the hardware peripheral sections a
board commonly holds become design commodities, the logical
When developed using an
advanced unified design system,
a product’s functional intelligence
can be easily defined in the
soft domain then deployed on
a custom or predefined OTS
hardware platform.
progression is a move to off-the-shelf (OTS) hardware solutions
that can be used to support a design’s core intelligence. In this
way, precious product design time can be redirected towards
creating unique and innovative solutions that provide true
market differentiation.
A new approach
Ultimately, real and sustainable market differentiation is
delivered by the design intelligence that delivers the unique
behavior, functions and connectivity to today’s products. When
exclusively held in the soft content of a product it is more secure
or difficult to copy, can easily be updated at any time – both
the hardware and software content – and potentially disconnects
a design from the shackles of a predetermined hardware
platform.
The change in thinking needed here is to turn traditional
design inside out by focusing first and foremost on the soft design
intelligence that defines a product. Then as the design progresses
or even when it is complete, determining the physical hardware
that supports it. The physical aspects of the design – the way it
is deployed to the market – might be in any number of forms,
including a complete OTS hardware device, an assembled set of
OTS hardware modules or a traditional custom-built PCB.
What’s even more compelling is the prospect of OTS
hardware that is directly supported by both the design software
and the hardware development platform you use to develop and
test the product. Design carried out in that environment can
then directly and seamlessly translate into the final product. If
the system is also independent of device vendors the door opens
to a flexible, soft-centric design approach that allows designers to
innovate without the barriers imposed by hardware constraints
or the complexity and inefficiency of traditional design tools.
In a highly competitive, global industry where change is
inevitable and innovation rules, the time has come for a hard,
fresh look at the way we design electronic products.Technological
change, if you embrace it, is your ally in producing products
that deliver long-term competitive differentiation when a soft-
focused design paradigm is applied and hardware takes a back,
supporting seat.
This is indeed the future, as all the global business trends,
advances in technology and consumer demands clearly indicate
– no crystal ball required. It’s ultimately up to you to respond
to a fundamental truth of the electronics industry: rapid and
ongoing technological change is inevitable, and those that don’t
embrace it cannot remain competitive.
Published: PCB 007, US, May ‘08
S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 45
46 The Way Forward 2009
Make
functionality,
not
hardware!
IT
doesn’t take too much
analysis of today’s electronics products to notice
that the competitive value in the majority of those
designs lies in the ‘soft’ domain. Or more specifically,
in the software-defined elements that characterize the product’s
function and user experience. Since the birth and widespread
adoption of microprocessors, the trend towards software-centric
design has continued at a rapid pace to the point where a product’s
physical hardware now takes a supportive back-seat role. It now
acts as a host and external interface for the software that defines
a product, rather than determining the unique aspects of that
product in its own right.
The development of a product’s physical hardware, while
still important, has become part of the design process that adds
little sustainable differentiation to the final result. An indication
of this hardware design trend can be seen in the ubiquitous
contents of today’s circuit boards, which generally contain
processors, interface peripherals and supporting glue logic – and
in an ever-increasing number of designs, programmable devices
such as FPGAs.
The majority of those hardware devices and blocks of circuitry
have become universal or ‘commodity’ items that are available to
everyone, and do not deliver any unique properties to the overall
design. One keypad interface or USB port is pretty much like
any other, so there’s no point wasting valuable design time
by designing from scratch to reinvent the wheel. On the
other hand, any new and unique ‘wheel’ you might create
in physical hardware is very easy for others to copy.
Where the value of design now lies, and where the prime
focus of design effort should lie, is in the soft elements of
a design that define its competitive advantage. Today, this is
a product’s true IP – its ‘device intelligence’. However,
in conventional design flows the initial part of the design
cycle is directed toward creating the physical hardware
platform to support those software elements. Meaningful
software development can’t proceed until a hardware
prototype is available, so a number of key device hardware
decisions must be made first, then a suitable platform
designed and created.
Unfortunately though, just how suitable that hardware
really is can become somewhat of a lottery, because the ‘soft’
elements it must support are yet to be developed. As that
software development progresses, the required capabilities of the
hardware platform will become clearer, yet its configuration has
already been locked when the initial prototype was created.
It may become obvious, for example, that the design will
benefit from (or indeed, only be achievable with) a different
type of microprocessor or programmable device. The options
are to create a revised hardware prototype – and possibly a
series of them – to achieve the intended product performance
and behavior, or compromise the final result by sticking to
S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 47
48 The Way Forward 2009
Along with core blocks of functional
logic, soft IP includes microprocessors,
peripherals and memory, so everything
you need is ready to go, regardless of the
hardware platform.
that hardware. The reality is that the core design functionality
is being held back by the predetermined hardware platform,
and changing it would cause a significant delay in the product
development time.
Putting hardware in its place
In many ways, this product development approach is
completely backwards. Conventional design flows, and in
particular those based on embedded design tools from FPGA
vendors, reinforce the problem by dictating a sequential and
limited approach to design. The overall process is based on a
collection of separate and isolated design tools. Each completed
task must be handed over to the next then reinterpreted in that
domain, and the choice of physical hardware devices is limited
by the partisan nature of the vendor tools.
Perhaps the main barrier to a soft-centric approach to
product design, in a nutshell, is that current tools and design
flows lock the development of software and physical hardware
together. What’s needed is a way to isolate the defining IP of the
design – the device intelligence that determines its functionality
and competitive value – from the hardware platform and devices
that support it.
This requires the use of a design system that raises the
abstraction of the design processes to a point where the
design IP is not tied to particular physical hardware devices,
microprocessors or even proprietary IP cores. Such a system
would allow designers to focus first and foremost on creating a
product’s core design intelligence.
High-level design tools
The starting point for a design system that frees designers to
create a product’s key functionality is one that is independent
of FPGA vendor or device. Unlike conventional IDE toolsets
from device vendors, a ‘neutral’ embedded development system
allows designers to both choose and change the programmable
device to suit the software under development, rather than the
other way around.
Such a system can achieve this capability by providing
matching driver files and hardware libraries for each supported
programmable device. The drivers can automatically supply the
design system with full knowledge of the target architecture
such as programming information, pin-out capabilities and
boundary scan data, while the library files provide the physical
and graphical models for the device. The system can also be
supported by a hardware development board featuring plug-in
device boards, allowing the entire design system to simply align
itself to the current choice of programmable device.
In a conventional design flow, however, changing to a different
FPGA means that the design requires significant re-engineering
to suit the new programmable device. This is because the
design-to-device targeting information that needs to change
– timing requirements, place and route data and port to pin
mapping – is generally contained within the source design
files. However, if that linking information is stored in separate
design ‘constraint’ files, the design is configured to the target
FPGA in a more flexible way. A new constraint file will target
the design to a different FPGA, allowing the design source to
remain largely unchanged and independent of the device it is
implemented on.
A comprehensive approach to multi-device compatibility can
also extend to library collections of embedded IP. If the function
blocks and components in the IP libraries are pre-synthesized
and verified to suit the architecture of all supported devices,
the embedded design can be easily developed from ready-to-go
blocks of circuitry without having to worry about the underlying
device architecture. Along with core blocks of functional logic,
this soft IP would include microprocessors, peripherals and
memory, so everything you need is ready to go, regardless of the
hardware platform.
Another level of unlocking the soft elements of a design from
the hardware that supports it is implementing design abstraction
layers into the embedded hardware design itself. Library
components featuring the Wishbone OpenBUS standard can
be included to ‘normalize’ the interfaces between processors,
memory and peripherals to simplify and speed up the design
process. What’s more, library-based hardware interface cores
can be introduced to ‘wrap’ around predefined processors and
peripherals, providing an isolating layer between the existing
interface arrangement and a hardware Wishbone bus. The
low-level hardware interface complexity is then handled by the
system rather than the designer.
These configurable hardware interface cores allow third-party
or vendor IP blocks (and even discrete hardware processors) to
be dropped into a design easily and changed at will. Changing
to a different processor IP block causes minimal impact to the
surrounding hardware, and when backed by compiler toolchains
for all supported processors, the embedded software can remain
intact. Again, the core design intelligence is not intimately
bound to the physical and embedded hardware, which reduces
complexity and allows hardware decisions to be made much
later in the design cycle.
Simplifying the embedded hardware structure and design
S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 49

processes in this way means that complex processor-based
embedded systems can be created and changed easily.The division
between hardware and software is more flexible, allowing the
partition to be moved throughout the design cycle rather than be
locked at the beginning of the embedded development process.
It also opens the possibility of implementing high-level systems
that translate software algorithms into hardware co-processors,
so the options can be compared and selected accordingly. Again,
the low-level hardware complexity is removed from the design
decisions and processes, allowing the designer to focus on
creating a product’s unique functionality.
Capturing innovation
With high-level ‘abstracted’ interface systems in place,
the opportunity then exists to raise the abstraction level of
the embedded design capture system itself. This is possible
because the complexity of the hardware architecture has been
hidden, core hardware and device components can be changed
without forcing a redesign, and most importantly the software-
based functionality of the design has been unlocked from the
hardware platform. Because the low-level design considerations
are now taken care of by the design system itself, the focus can
be redirected towards developing a design’s core functional
elements by using high-level capture interfaces.
At a practical level, the arcane nature of HDL entry can give
way to simpler embedded design capture systems that raise the
level of design abstraction. These might take a graphical flow
diagram approach, or even use a schematic capture system where
functional blocks of IP can be moved around and interconnected
in a familiar way.
When coupled with an underlying system that uses software
layers to segregate and configure the supporting hardware, high-
level design capture systems can directly deal with the embedded
elements that define product functionality. The hardware
platform is not a prime consideration and can be dealt with later,
when the product’s form and function have been developed to
a mature state.
The separation of design functionality from physical hardware
also offers a high-level of design portability where multiple
hardware configurations are easy to explore. Because the core IP
50 The Way Forward 2009
When an embedded
development system
coexists with physical
hardware design tools
in a unified product
development system, the
high-level design processes
can permeate through
the complete design
environment.
of the design – where its true value lies – is largely independent
of the hardware that supports it, it can be implemented on
different hardware platforms that might deliver benefits such as
improved performance, a simpler implementation or even lower
costs. With each change, the re-engineering required would be
minimal or even non-existent because the design’s embedded
intelligence is not implicitly bound to the physical hardware.
Systems for success
Raising the level of design abstraction delivers benefits
that go way beyond providing more accessible design capture
systems. When the abstracted processes reach down to a system
level where hardware complexity is dealt with by ‘smart’ software
layers, rather than merely being hidden, the process of creating
a design’s functionality can be separated from the physical
hardware it will be implemented on.
Furthermore, if that embedded development system coexists
with physical hardware design tools in a unified product
development system, the high-level design processes can
permeate through the complete design environment. A single
design model is used for the entire design, so components and
connectivity are reflected through all domains. For example, the
high-level system that responds to a change in FPGA device
can implement the reconfiguration at a physical hardware level
as well as at an embedded hardware level.
The end result is a design system that streamlines and
simplifies the product development process from conception
though to the finished product. A high level of design abstraction,
when implemented through the entire design system, removes
the need to define and create the physical hardware prior to
developing a product’s software-defined functional intelligence.
It is the unique ‘soft’ functionality implemented in a design
that delivers sustainable product differentiation, and not the
nature of the physical hardware that it resides on. Today’s
electronics design tools must provide high-level systems that
unlock that functionality from the shackles of a predefined
hardware platform, allowing designers to focus on creating the
intelligent, connected products of tomorrow.
Published: Military & Aerospace Electronics, US, March ‘09
Siemens:
Reducing production costs and
advancing productivity when
developing industrial automation.
"Altium Designer is
a fully featured, cost-
effective solution that
has allowed us to take
control of our board
development needs.
Capabilities such as
advanced pin swapping
backed up by excellent
customer support have
allowed us to improve
our productivity while
reducing costs."
Hans-Jürgen Strohbach,
I&S IT,
Siemens Karlsruhe AG
Industrial automation specialist
Siemens Karlsruhe Automation and Drives develops complete
systems for advanced control of factory operations and processes.
The complex and highly networked automation systems used
in today’s large industrial environments introduced the need for
the Industrial IT division’s Simulation and Testing (S & T) arm to
develop a range of specialized network gateway and system
simulation units. These are typically a year in development and
are based on Xilinx FPGAs with embedded PowerPC processors.
They offer a high level of on-board intelligence and interface to
advanced industrial ethernet (field bus) systems such as Profinet
via an embedded Linux OS.
By electing to move the major electronic design tasks in-house,
Siemens Karlsruhe S&T needed to find a design system that
would provide the latest technology and design techniques –
such as efficient FPGA pin optimization – while offering low TCO
and high productivity. In preference to competing systems already
in use within the Siemens Karlsruhe group, Altium Designer was
the division’s design solution of choice.
Altium Designer was selected for its in-house design and board
layout capabilities. Compared to competing solutions, it offered
a high ROI through its competitive pricing and comprehensive
feature set, while the advanced FPGA capabilities and unified
design flow provided the design efficiencies required to meet the
division’s tight development schedules.
Along with advanced IO management and design
synchronization, Altium Designer’s unified design environment
provides a natively efficient system for pin swapping with FPGA
devices. This is of particular advantage with designs utilizing
large-scale FPGAs – such as those typically developed by Siemens
Karlsruhe S&T – where pin-position optimization can deliver
substantial reductions in board real estate and number of layers.
Since introducing Altium Designer for its in-house electronic
design and board layout, Siemens Karlsruhe S&T has successfully
completed advanced designs for network gateway devices,
automation emulation boards and simulation units such as
the SIMBA PNIO ‘factory in a box’ device. Although extremely
complex, the SIMBA PNIO simulation unit was the first project
developed with Altium Designer – it was fully developed and
manufactured within deadline and to budget.
During the product development process, the division
engineers benefited from Altium Designer’s advanced
board-level capabilities that feature native data
connectivity with FPGA-based designs. The design
staff also appreciates the system’s intuitive user
interface, productive unified design flow and
Altium’s customer support services, described by
staff as “excellent”.
S3 Focus on the Soft Domain 51
52 The Way Forward 2009
Bringing
realityto
PCB design
S4 ECAD-MCAD Collaboration 53
 In
a fundamental shift
that redefined how products are created,
the transition of engineering design from
manual drafting based methodologies to
Computer-aided Design (CAD) has transformed design
in virtually all branches of engineering. The application of
CAD in the electronics industry is no exception, and has
revolutionized the way engineers work and the products
that can be developed. You won’t find too many engineers
that would be willing to go back to the old methods.
What you would be going back to is laying out strips of tape
and sticking graphics shapes on a flat sheet to create the tracks,
footprints and connections that represent the electrical version
of the design’s schematic. The birth of ECAD – as in other
engineering branches – was essentially the wholesale transfer
of that traditional process into the computer software domain.
ECAD applications have evolved at a rapid pace since that
time, but the roots are firmly planted in the two-dimensional
approach of working with board layouts as an essentially ‘top-
down’ process.
The original 2D mindset was all that was needed to design
simple, single-layer boards where there was little concern
for component dimensions beyond the basic footprint area.
Today’s complex board designs bear little resemblance to their
predecessors, and have evolved to a point where virtually all
boards involve multiple layers with electrical connections in
the vertical dimension. This and the need to consider the space
and position occupied by component bodies from a mechanical,
thermal and visual design perspective means we are actually
‘working’ in 3D when designing PCBs – at least, we are from
conceptual standpoint.

The third dimension

To deal with this added dimension of design complexity,
advanced ECAD applications have evolved to cope by adding
features such as the ability to switch between color-coded layers,
alter layer transparencies and even render a 3D image of the
board as a post-design check.
The need to consider all dimensions is not unique to ECAD,
however, and it’s an interesting exercise to consider the parallel
development of CAD systems in the other engineering disciplines.
Many of those engineering fields, for example mechanical and
architectural design, also have their roots in a two-dimensional
drafting approach but the CAD tools evolved to incorporate 3D
capabilities over 20 years ago. As a result the accepted – or even
‘normal’ – way to inspect, alter and review the design of say a new
car or building is in an interactive 3D CAD environment.
To be fair though, ECAD is still a largely a 2D engineering
exercise where a ‘flat’ circuit board is ultimately created from
multiple ‘flat’ layers, and in some cases 3D versions of the design
might be passed to the MCAD environment for checking.
Indeed, it’s not that surprising that ECAD systems have
traditionally offered minimal 3D capabilities when compared to
their engineering CAD peers.
While it has previously taken a low profile, however, there
is no question that 3D is playing a more important role in
electronic product design as board complexity increases, so
today’s CAD systems need to offer meaningful capabilities in
this area. We have the situation where engineers are visualizing
in 3D while they design; the end goal – a board assembly – is a
3D entity, but the design tool being used is restricted to the 2D

54 The Way Forward 2009

 Keep one
step
ahead of
the competition

S4 ECAD-MCAD Collaboration 55
 realm. The computer hardware being used is most likely capable
of rendering real-time 3D images thanks to modern graphics
cards and the standard DirectX® software interface, so it is
technically possible and there are no real cost penalties in
this approach.

Let’s go 3D
When implemented in ECAD, the ability to view and
manipulate a board design in a real-time 3D environment
opens up a range of practical and workflow advantages that
allow you to make more informed design decisions and work
in a more intuitive way. In the same way that CAD systems
in other engineering fields let you view a 3D rendered version
of the design from all angles, including the inside of objects,
3D ECAD lets you see a realistic view of every aspect of the
complete board.
In real terms this means the capability to ‘fly’ around and
inside the board in real time, while viewing fully rendered pads,
cut-outs, via barrels, solder mask expansions, silk screen overlays,
plus tented and hidden vias from either the board surface or
internally. Having such a realistic view of all board details
allows you to accurately inspect the board prior to manufacture,
which makes it easier to detect design faults and make decisions
regarding board surface overlays and coating finishes.
As the board design is being developed, having 3D
capabilities also means you can directly view the board’s internal
layer stackup for making more accurate spacing judgments
when placing blind or buried vias. Zooming and rotating around

3D Visualization the external view of board also helps you make more informed
decisions when placing components – for example by helping
you visualize the airflow around the board when making thermal

will help judgments, or by simply providing a realistic view of the board

assembly for aesthetic ‘fine tuning’.
If 3D visualization is a unified part of the board editing
you get the system, the option exists to make edits while using multiple and
mixed views of the board layout in both 2D and 3D formats.
By including a configurable viewing panel, the system could
connectivity be arranged to show say a static internal view of a board area
while external changes are being made to that section in a real-

and physical time 3D viewing panel. Other possibilities that can make board
design easier, more realistic and faster include A-A and B-B
cross-section slices of the board, the ability to see and color 3D

attributes component bodies, plus the ability save and load custom 2D/3D
view configurations.

of your design A new dimension in board design

From a product design perspective an ECAD system with

right the
real-time 3D capabilities can help to keep one step ahead of
the competition by allowing you to produce a more visually
professional result with fewer board revisions. A full and realistic

first time. view of the board is available at all times during development,
allowing you to make accurate visual design judgments and trap
errors before they propagate through to the manufacturing stage.
Ultimately, this allows you to produce a better-designed board
in less time, which reduces costs and makes your board stand
out in the market – a considerable advantage for board design
contractors in particular.
Beyond the direct practical advantages developing PCBs
using real-time 3D, it is simply a more natural and tactile way
to work since you are manipulating and viewing a realistic
representation of the final result. This adds up to a more enjoyable

56 The Way Forward 2009

user experience that will allow you to work faster and produce
superior results.
PCB layout engineers and designers have actually been
working in the 3D space since single-layer boards gave way
to multi-layer designs all those years ago. It’s just that the 3D
visualizing has been happening in engineers’ heads rather than
in the software tools they’ve been using. With everything in
place for 3D-based board development to be a reality – the
need, the concepts and computer hardware – all that’s required
is ECAD software that seamlessly supports it in the board
layout environment.
Altium has taken this step forward by including advanced 3D
visualization in its latest product release – Altium Designer 6.8.
By taking advantage of DirectX capabilities, PCB Visualization
allows you to customize and configure the design view for both
2D and 3D displays so that you can inspect and edit objects
such as pads, via barrels, tented vias (both on the surface and
internally) from a 3D perspective – and all in high detail.
Three simultaneous 3D views are available in a fully
configurable 3D Visualization panel, which includes the ability
to define board cross-sections and the depth of 3D detail by
varying the level of ‘through-board’ opacity. These settings
can also be saved so you can recall favorite 2D/3D view
setups easily.
The real-time 3D viewing capabilities of Altium Designer
are further enhanced by the ability to set up the colors of the
workspace, copper, and component bodies (as defined by a 3D
footprint attribute) on the board. Opacity and color setting also
can be specified for Solder Masks, Board Core, and Silkscreen,
allowing you to define exactly how the board assembly is
displayed in 3D.
To help you navigate the board in 3D mode, Altium Designer
includes an innovative ‘3D sphere’ feature that helps you to
control the direction to spin and rotation of the board in the 3D
space, plus new fast mouse zooming and panning configurations.
These features help you move around in the 3D environment
in an intuitive way, but this can be taken to the next step by
investing in a latest generation 3D navigation device like the
‘SpaceNavigator’ 3D mouse from 3Dconnexions. This device is
fully supported in Altium Designer, and when combined with
the real-time graphics of PCB Visualization, lets you experience
the freedom of feeling like you are directly reaching into the
display and exploring the design in a detailed 3D world.
Altium Designer’s 3D Visualization offers a new and
enhanced way to work with PCBs – one that also signals a future
path for ECAD, which is becoming increasingly connected to
the interdependent role that MCAD plays in electronic product
development. From an immediate perspective though, 3D
Visualization will help you get the connectivity and physical
attributes of your design right the first time by providing an
unprecedented level of reality when viewing PCB assemblies.
The 3D environment is also a more natural and easy place
to work in, and even offers the prospect of making complex
PCB design enjoyable – one you’ve tried it, you’ll find it hard to
go back.
Published: Embedded Journal, US, March ‘08 and Electronik Praxis, Germany,
February ‘08
S4 ECAD-MCAD Collaboration 57
 EC AD-MC AD
DESIGN
removing 25 years of pain

58 The Way Forward 2009

IN today’s worldwide
market, designers are
frustrated with the barriers
created by outdated ideas
of discrete design disciplines.
They simply want to design
superior products that beat
the competition. And they
want a solution that’s easy
to use, and that allows them
to focus on designing the
intelligence in their products.

S4 ECAD-MCAD Collaboration 59
 In today’s products the electronic
and mechanical aspects of
the design are intimately
connected and interdependent.
T he pressure to create the next generation of electronic
products in less time is forcing designers to critically reassess
the overall product development process – from concept right
through to manufacture. Fueled by the ongoing evolution of
electronics technology, the pressure to produce smaller, smarter,
more connected products that deliver a competitive edge in the
market now means considering all parts of the product design
process as a whole.
The mechanical and electronic design attributes that
differentiate a product from its competitors have been
traditionally considered within their separate domains, then
forced to work together as an overall product. And it’s the
combined distinctiveness of those elements that create today’s
unique, connected products. It also raises the question of how
products should be connected to deliver unique benefits to those
that use and service a device or machine. What is now needed
is to view the bigger picture of the design process, with all
elements working together, across all design disciplines.
An increasingly important need in product development is
dynamic interaction between the electronic and mechanical
aspects of a design, where the incessant need for smaller and more
functional packaging forces the two to be intimately connected
– in both the physical sense and in their development.
Board assemblies now typically hold all of the external
hardware such as connectors, keypads and displays while the
product case assembly neatly exposes these to the user. This
physical interface is also where the product’s design intelligence
inside the box meets the user. The two domains are inescapably
linked. It has been a long time since an electronic product’s
60 The Way Forward 2009
case was designed to conform to the physical properties of the
electronic assembly it houses. Today, the relationship between
a product’s electronic and mechanical design has matured to
the point where the situation is pretty much reversed – the
electronic assemblies are now designed to physically comply
with the intended case format.
What’s changed is that today’s competitive products – those
that are different because they are remarkable, or desirable, or
perhaps first – are more than ever defined by the user experience,
which can be described by that product’s form and function. This
critical connection between the product and user is defined by
factors such as aesthetics, ergonomics and its functional behavior,
which are in turn established by the mechanical (MCAD) and
electrical (ECAD) design of that product.
As designs become more sophisticated, intelligent and
connected, the concept of high-level design has emerged in the
form of system designers in the ECAD world and industrial
designers in the MCAD domain. Together, they determine how
device intelligence, design, function and form combine and work
together to create the products we all use.
The mechanical aspects of designs now profoundly influence
the electronic design more than ever, influencing or defining
board shape, size and component positioning, but in many cases
also determining the type of components used and even how
the software behaves. This trend makes the interaction between
the domains more important than ever, since the competitive
success of a product can now hinge on the effectiveness of that
ECAD-MCAD cooperation. We need processes that work
together, rather than just connect together.
S4 ECAD-MCAD Collaboration 61
 the star of the
show is clearance
checking, or
in other terms
the process of
‘materials fit’.
25 years of relationship trouble
In practice the need for ECAD and MCAD design data
transfer has been addressed at a simple level by the use of
common file formats that pass basic dimensional information
between the design applications in each domain.
The development of 3D MCAD design during the 1970s, and
then solid modeling in the ‘80s, tracked a somewhat rough path
in the evolution of the data exchange file formats, particularly
from the ECAD perspective. The result is an ECAD-MCAD
design flow that tends to exist at only a basic level and relies
on a range of different file exchange formats, depending on the
MCAD and ECAD applications in use.
And this was always predicated on the two disciplines
remaining discrete. Traditionally this means the dimensional
and object positioning data from one application are processed
and transferred to the other via a range of 2D and 3D file
formats, as ‘milestone’ events. With each of these steps suitable
design modifications are made, and another data exchange may
then be instigated to confirm those modifications, resulting in a
rather cumbersome, sequential process that does not encourage
MCAD-ECAD design collaboration.
Another approach to the problem has been the use of
separate, third-party design translators to ease file compatibility
issues (IDF, for example, is sparsely supported in the MCAD
world) and make the process more flexible. These often provide
import/export options in the native format of the ECAD-
MCAD applications, and in some cases connect directly into
those programs using object linking (OLEs) or programming
interfaces (APIs).
To date both these approaches have fallen short of the ideal.
With the basic file exchange setup, data translation errors are
frequent due to limitations and inconsistencies in the exchange
format itself and there is little control over the degree of data sent
– too much or too little is equally problematic. But above all the
process is generally clunky and marred by the incompatibilities
62 The Way Forward 2009
of weak data exchange formats. Dedicated CAD translation
programs generally offer a better approach, thanks to more
rigidly defined formats and data filtering options that allow you
to specify what objects are included for transfer. Unfortunately,
however, it is often a case of two steps forward and two steps
back due to the added layer of translation complexity inserted
into the process.
The approach can, for example, make the translation process
version-sensitive because of its intimate ties to the MCAD-
ECAD applications, and it certainly adds another licensing cost
to the overall design system. The linked (OLE, API) version
of the translator programs can offer a more integrated solution
by bolting itself into the MCAD or ECAD application, but
the trade-off is that it then becomes ‘version-critical’ and the
MCAD-ECAD applications must be loaded on the same PC
platform so the OLE/API interconnections can be established.
A unified solution
As with other engineering processes that have evolved to
cater for a growing need, it’s worth taking a higher level view of
the desired result those processes aspire to provide. As it stands,
the existing solutions attempt to bridge the MCAD-ECAD
gap though a maze of file formats and applications designed
to stitch processes together. What’s basically needed, however,
from a process point of view, is the ability to design and position
correctly sized objects in both domains so that the overall design
fits together as intended.
In essence, then, the star of the show is clearance checking,
or in other terms the process of ‘materials fit’. This part of
the design process is generally undertaken in the MCAD
environment, where an imported 3D rendition of the PCB
assembly is placed within the MCAD design. Clash-detection
within that environment then determines the success of that fit
and, if necessary, board modification data can then be sent back
to the ECAD domain.
 What’s been needed at a fundamental level then is a reliable,
comprehensive and convenient way to transfer that data
between the domains. Fortunately the development of 3D data
transfer protocols has moved to the next level with the relatively
new STEP format, which is a data-rich and extremely robust
protocol designed for 3D design and manufacturing processes.
STEP is now supported by most MCAD systems and the
introduction of bi-directional support within the ECAD
domain offers the potential to eliminate the 3D data translation
problems in one ‘step’. STEP files can be large, but this can be
easily constrained if the ECAD system also offers an intelligent
range of object filtering options in the translation interface. Along
with file compatibility benefits, this approach also removes the
complications and expense of third-party applications, and does
not suffer from MCAD-ECAD application version issues.
Focusing again on the fundamental need, it also becomes
clear that a significant part of the problem needs to be solved
in the ECAD domain, particularly if true concurrent ECAD-
MCAD design is the desired outcome. In the existing workflow
where object clearance issues are solved exclusively within the
MCAD domain, ECAD design can only progress when those
‘milestone’ clearance checks have been completed. As a result,
intermittent design concurrency is the best possible result.
Bringing critical MCAD parts into a 3D-capable ECAD
board design space allows designers to check and correct clearance
and fit issues on the fly, without relying on an inefficient process
of continually exchanging design data between the domains.
To make ECAD clearance checking a possibility, what’s
needed are real-time 3D capabilities within the PCB editor,
plus the ability to import MCAD assemblies into that space. By
using the robust STEP format to bring, say, a case assembly into
the ECAD domain, practical interference checking can become
a reality in the PCB design environment. If such a system is
then coupled to matching user-defined clearance rules and 3D
object transparency options, a large part of the mechanical fit
task can be resolved in real time within the ECAD domain.
This system would match and potentially exceed the capabilities
of the equivalent process in the MCAD environment, enabling
genuine concurrent design between the domains.
Such an approach significantly reduces the complexity and
number of MCAD-ECAD design iterations that are required
by existing systems. In an ideal world the iterations might be
eliminated by a single, huge design environment that caters for
both MCAD and ECAD design. But while this is not a practical
reality with current technology, file exchange processes can be
reduced or even eliminated by linking to 3D data files rather
than embedding that data within the ECAD design files.
In workflow terms this means that the ECAD application
simply loads data from an external 3D STEP file that has been
generated by the MCAD application. The PCB editor can then
alert the user when that external file changes – in response to an
update from the MCAD domain – then update the object in
the PCB workspace and ECAD design files. This would all
occur in a real-time 3D design environment, allowing board
designers to resolve mechanical clearance errors on the fly
rather than through a protracted series of MCAD-ECAD
design iterations.
Ultimately, the increasing importance of the physical
properties of today’s designs means that the interdependency
of the ECAD and MCAD design environments needs to be
catered for by systems that deal with the core problem directly.
Most existing systems that attempt to provide a solution fall
short of the mark or create counterproductive and error-prone
workflow. By introducing an ECAD system that provides robust
3D data transfer, interactive clearance checking and the ability
to link to the MCAD world in real time, designers can work
cooperatively in both domains to create unique products that
deliver a clear and sustainable caompetitive edge.
Published: EE Times India, India, July ‘08; Polyscope, Switzerland, September
‘08; and Elektronik I Norden, Norway, October ‘08
S4 ECAD-MCAD Collaboration 63
 Creating
connections
between electronics design and manufacturing

64 The Way Forward 2009

PCB desigN
is just not what it used to be.
Even though it has dramatically evolved over the last couple
of decades, it has always tended to be a singular, focused task that
a board designer can get stuck into while surfacing periodically
for coffee and new design information.
Perhaps the first challenge in tackling today’s advanced
designs is losing that comfortable concept of an isolated
process that that is not directly dependent on other parts of the
product design process. On the contrary, the board design in
today’s leading electronic products is now inextricably locked
to the mechanical and ‘soft’ embedded parts of the design, so
all design disciplines need to work together in a collaborative
way. The hard facts are that design information, and perhaps
even your coffee, need to be shared in a cooperative product
design environment.
This is not a sudden change. The evidence has been
progressively appearing in the way board designs and the
components they hold have evolved. Along with the expected
changes in scale that are so familiar in the electronics domain
– boards becoming smaller and more complex, component pin
counts increasing, signal clock speeds rising, and the number of
board layers growing – a number of other changes have crept
in that don’t necessarily follow the linear, ‘smaller-faster-denser’
evolution sequence.
These are differences in board design that are less directly
coupled to semiconductor technology advances, and more to
how product design itself is evolving from the sum of several
independent design silos to a single collective process.
The clues to this change are the other shifts in board design
such as complex PCB shapes, the introduction of flexible board
substrates, the adoption of large-scale programmable devices
and, in an increasing number of current designs, an actual
decrease in component count.
The drivers of these developments can be grouped in two
influential trends: the wholesale move towards a ‘soft-centric’
design approach, and the increasing influence of a product’s
mechanical design in the board development process. Both of
these changes are driven by significant developments within the
electronics design industry that are here to stay.
To remain competitive while creating tomorrow’s products,
designers from all disciplines need to respond to these
developments by considering the overall product design task
and how the domains share design data – particularly between
the electrical and mechanical design environments.

The drivers of change

From a business standpoint the obvious shift in the electronics
industry is globalization of the market form both a sales and
product development perspective. This is represented by a world-
scale revolution in the way many products, or key elements of
those products, are now designed, manufactured and distributed.
The tangible result of this change can be seen in the form of
low-cost electronic products that have now become ‘commodity’
items – look no further than the DVD players at your local
retailer. Irrespective of the development origins, these devices
have been transformed from a unique product to a universal,
low-cost product that applies to a worldwide market.

S4 ECAD-MCAD Collaboration 65
 board design...
a singular, focused task
that you get stuck into
while surfacing periodically
for coffee and new
design information.
Whether it’s a consumer product, an industrial controller
or display sub-assembly, globalization – the move to a single,
highly competitive world marketplace – creates an environment
where commodity products pour onto the world market from
the most cost-effective manufacturing regions. For both big and
small companies worldwide this also opens the opportunity to
outsource cost-sensitive processes, typically manufacturing and
distribution, on a world scale. The move to ‘off-shoring’ and the
general trend to global product commoditization have generated
entire categories of products that can only be differentiated from
each other on price.
This change has challenged the fundamental thinking
on what makes a product unique, desirable and ultimately
successful in today’s highly competitive market. Thanks to global
competitiveness, creating a product for a slightly lower price
might gain a temporary market advantage, but it’s only a matter
of time before this is undercut by an equivalent product from
somewhere on the globe.
Similarly, getting a product to market first is, by definition,
only a temporary competitive advantage since others will
quickly follow to dissolve that gain. Both these approaches
can only create brief windows of competitive opportunity, and
should be regarded as target ‘survival drivers’ rather than a path
to achieving sustained product differentiation.
The hard facts are that while there are essential criteria for
today’s board designs – meeting cost, quality, deadline and
performance goals – the physical electronics hardware itself
will not deliver sustainable market differentiation to the final
product. Any unique intellectual property in the physical
hardware is relatively easy to reproduce and therefore cannot
remain unique. What’s more, virtually all components and sub-
assemblies within the design are universal ‘commodity’ items in
themselves and are available to all designers – one USB sub-
block or display interface is pretty much like any other.
Along with market globalization and the proliferation of
commodity electronics, the electronics industry is undergoing an
era of unprecedented technological change. This has been driven
by factors such as the increasing ‘connectivity’ of electronics
products and, in particular, the advent of low-cost, large-scale
programmable devices.
Reprogrammable devices such as FPGAs have created
a revolution in the way products are designed by offering an
open-ended platform for creating complex ‘soft’ hardware in
the programmable design space. For some time the competitive
factors of a design have largely been defined by software rather
than physical hardware, but the introduction of programmable
hardware allows that ‘soft’ influence to enter into the electronics
design itself. The functional intelligence that determines a
product’s competitive edge can now be defined in both software
and hardware.

66 The Way Forward 2009

 The impact of this is significant from a board design
perspective, since an ever-increasing number of PCB designs
now contain one or more programmable devices. These are
likely to be large, high pin-count (or BGA) FPGA devices
which present substantial board routing challenges, but tend
to reduce the total number of components on the board. The
most obvious reason for that is that the majority of logic devices
required by the design can be transferred into the fabric of an
FPGA, saving considerable board real estate and reducing the
layout complexity.
The less immediately obvious, but far more potent, impact of
FPGAs is the potential for virtually an entire design – including
microprocessors, memory, peripheral bocks and interfaces – to be
contained within the FPGA. With this approach the remaining
on-board electronics and hardware simply provide the interface
to the outside world. Routing the board also presents unique
challenges when FPGAs are involved, since the pin configuration
(the functional position and electrical characteristic of each pin)
is fully programmable and determined within the FPGA –
rather than the board – design domain. Once programmed, the
pin configuration of every FPGA is unique, and likely to change
during the course of the design development.
Taking the higher-level view, the changes that are affecting
today’s board designs have moved away from the better-smaller
electronics device path and more to an approach that achieves
sustainable product differentiation in the market: namely
the move to a soft-centric design within programmable
devices, with less emphasis on IP contained within the physical
hardware design.
Ultimately, real and sustainable product differentiation lies in
the way a product looks, feels and functions. Today’s competitive
products – those that exhibit a differentiating edge among
competitors – are more than ever defined by the user experience,
which can be described by that product’s form and function.
This critical connection between the product and user is defined
by factors such as aesthetics, ergonomics and its functional
behavior, which are in turn established by the mechanical and
software (but not the board) design of that product.
The mechanical aspects of a product design now directly
and profoundly influence the electronic design by determining
the board shape, size and positioning of its components, and in
many cases by also defining the type of components used and
how the software should behave. Complex board shapes and
flexible board materials are physical evidence of the intimate
ties between the mechanical case design and the board assembly
it houses. This trend makes the interaction between the design
domains more important than ever, since the competitive success
of a product can now hinge on the effectiveness of that electrical
and mechanical design cooperation.
You are no longer alone
The overall message here is that the task of creating today’s
successful products must involve the close interaction between
all the elements – electrical, mechanical and software – of a
design. This represents the broader and pervasive unification of
the product design processes, including PCB design, which is
needed to meet the challenge of creating the next generation of
electronic products.
So where does this leave the process of PCB design for
today’s products? The first certainty is that board design can no
longer exist in isolation from the soft (software and embedded
hardware) and mechanical design processes. As the design
disciplines converge, the processes become interdependent and
at the least must successfully share design data.
From a practical board design perspective, the embedded
hardware design information needs to be incorporated into the
layout as FPGA pin data and its associated electrical constraints,
as these fundamentally influence the routing process. Changes
in the FPGA design generate disruptive routing challenges and
a further exchange of design data between the FPGA-PCB
domains, creating a potentially cumbersome and error-prone
design workflow.
In a similar way, the mechanical parts of the design – in the
simplest sense, housing or enclosure – determine the dimensional
properties of the board, creating the need for another data flow
between the domains. Changes in the mechanical design will
trigger board design revisions, imposing further delays and
complexity in the product development workflow.
When design systems involved exist as a traditional
collection of separate process ‘silos’, effectively sharing design
data information becomes a significant problem in its own right.
If the file exchange systems exist to successfully translate and
propagate the data – and this is not guaranteed – the information
can be passed ‘over the wall’ to the next design domain and
process. A conventional product design system that exists as a
disparate group of design tools silos already suffers from the
inefficiencies of a sequential workflow, and adding further layers
of data exchange – such as that between MCAD and ECAD –
serves to compound those problems.
The struggle to bring the mechanical (MCAD) and electrical
(ECAD) design worlds together has been hampered by very
different nature of the two design disciples. Unlike the common
electronic relationship between embedded development and
board design, mechanical design traditionally exists in a very
different head space to electronic design. The fundamental
differences between mechanical and electrical CAD tools tend
to reflect this gap, which in the past has negatively impacted the
common ground of design data exchange formats.
Information paths
In practice the need for ECAD and MCAD design data
transfer has been addressed at a simple level by the use of
common file formats that pass basic dimensional information
between the design applications in each domain.
The development of 3D MCAD design during the 1970s,
and then solid modeling in the ‘80s, has been paralleled by the
introduction of a bewildering range of data exchange formats.
These vary widely in capability and accuracy, with few formats
ideally suited to exchanging comprehensive 3D data to the
ECAD domain. The result is an ECAD-MCAD design flow
that tends to exist at a basic level and relies on a range of
different file exchange formats, depending on the MCAD and
ECAD applications in use.
Traditionally this means the dimensional and object
positioning data from one application are processed and
transferred to the other via a range of 2D and 3D file formats,
as ‘milestone’ events. In workflow terms, for example, basic PCB
shape details might pass from MCAD to ECAD, then at a later
stage, a simple 3D model file of the board assembly is passed
from ECAD to MCAD to check the mechanical fit between
the board and enclosure. With each of these steps suitable
design modifications are made, and another data exchange is
S4 ECAD-MCAD Collaboration 69
 usually instigated to confirm those modifications, resulting in
a protracted and iterative process that does little to encourage
MCAD-ECAD design collaboration.
Another approach to the problem has been the use of
separate, third-party design translators to ease file compatibility
issues (for example IDF, the Intermediate Data Format, is
sparsely supported in the MCAD world) and make the process
more flexible. These often provide import/export options in the
native format of the ECAD-MCAD applications, and in some
cases connect directly into those programs using object linking
(OLEs) or programming interfaces (APIs).
To date both these approaches have fallen short of the ideal.
With the basic file exchange setup, data translation errors are
frequent due to limitations and inconsistencies in the exchange
format itself and there is little control over the degree of data sent
– too much or too little is equally problematic. But above all the
process is generally clunky and marred by the incompatibilities
of weak data exchange formats.
Dedicated CAD translation programs generally offer a
better outcome, thanks to more rigidly defined formats and
data filtering options that allow you to specify what objects are
included for transfer. Unfortunately, however, it is often a case of
two steps forward and two steps back due to the added layer of
translation complexity inserted into the process.
The approach can, for example, make the translation process
version-sensitive because of its intimate ties to the MCAD-
ECAD applications, and it certainly adds another licensing cost
to the overall design system. The linked (OLE, API) version
of the translator programs can offer a more integrated solution
by bolting itself into the MCAD or ECAD application, but
the trade-off is that it then becomes ‘version-critical’ and the
MCAD-ECAD applications must be loaded on the same PC
platform so the OLE/API interconnections can be established.
Tackling the fundamentals
The first step in creating a design environment that
promotes real design collaboration between the ECAD and
MCAD domains is taking a higher level view of the electronic
to mechanical design relationship. A core concept here is
the current changes in the electronics design industry mean
that product design must now be thought of as a single task,
rather than a collection of processes that are ultimately
brought together.
From a board design standpoint, this means embracing a
shared and collaborative approach to design that keeps a firm
eye on the final result – a complete electronic product that meets
market goals. In turn, this means recognizing developments
such as the often dominating influence of a product’s
mechanical design in the board design process, and the need for
design data exchange systems that work together rather than
connect together.
What’s needed at a fundamental level then is a reliable,
comprehensive and convenient way to transfer that data between
the domains. Existing solutions attempt to bridge the MCAD-
ECAD gap though a maze of file formats and applications
designed to stitch processes together. These systems have evolved
over time to meet the growing need for design data exchange,
but in the process have adopted proprietary formats or pressed
existing but inadequate ones into service.
However, 3D data transfer protocols have now moved to
the next level with the relatively new STEP format, which is
70 The Way Forward 2009
a data-rich and extremely robust protocol designed for 3D
design and manufacturing processes. STEP is now supported
by most MCAD systems, so an ECAD solution that supports
bi-directional STEP transfer will significantly reduce 3D data
translation problems through this feature alone.
STEP files can be large, but this can be easily constrained
if the ECAD system also offers an intelligent range of object
filtering options in the translation interface. Along with file
compatibility benefits, this approach can also remove the
complications and expense of third-party applications, and does
not suffer from MCAD-ECAD application version issues.
Beyond robust file systems for design data exchange, the
ECAD-MCAD workflow needs to be considered from a
productivity standpoint. For example, introducing separate
third-party translation and processing applications adds
more sequential stages to the process, leading to an increase
in workflow complexity and the likelihood of recursive errors
in critical design data. In short, any solution that introduces
multiple file formats and sequential data translations must, by
definition, increase the risk of slowing and complicating the
product development process.
Another point to consider is how the 3D data models
are created and applied for viewing in the MCAD space.
Performing accurate judgments of how the electro-mechanical
parts fit together – in practice, object clearance and interference
checking – relies on the availability of accurate 3D object models.
At a practical level this means that assembly information passed
from ECAD to MCAD must include accurate component
models, or those electrical models must be available within the
MCAD application where they can be inserted as required.
Systems that rely on IDF file transfer are an example where
the included 3D model information is inadequate for accurate
clearance checking in the MCAD space. If IDF transfer is
used in a stand-alone translation application that also performs
clearance checking, critical models must be replaced with more
accurate ones from its own 3D library. Data exported from this
application as IDF files will then lose this more accurate data
due to the limitations of the file format. At the least, this adds
yet another layer of translation complexity to the process.
In terms of data integrity and workflow efficiency, MCAD-
ECAD connectivity at its basic level is best served by a
straightforward approach of passing STEP models directly
between the two domains. While this seems simple enough, it
relies on an ECAD system that includes STEP import/export
capabilities, comprehensive 3D modeling data, and filter options
to control the 3D content of exported files.
The next level
When considering the size and application of STEP file
exchange in MCAD-ECAD systems, it’s interesting to note the
differences in content for each direction flow – and what this
implies. In a typical workflow, 3D data representing the product’s
housing, a component or a new board shape will be transferred
from the MCAD to the ECAD space, while a model of the
complete PCB assembly is usually transferred from the ECAD
to MCAD domain for clearance checking purposes.
In terms of data flow and file complexity, the MCAD
models passed to the ECAD domain are relatively simple (say,
an enclosure) while those passed from ECAD to MCAD are
usually complex (such as a complete PCB assembly, including
components). Board assemblies are object-rich and create
 embracE
complex 3D data files which must be loaded then rendered
in the MCAD space for clearance checking purposes. Any
corrections for the board layout or shape are passed back to
the ECAD space, where revisions are made and data exchange
processes repeated.
The point of note here is that checking and revising the board
assembly to fit the mechanical housing constraints is largely an
a shared and
ECAD problem, but much of the process occurs in the MCAD
space using complex 3D board assembly data. When you
collaborative
consider the fundamental needs of that workflow, it becomes
clear that ideally, a significant part of the mechanical fit problem approach to design
needs to be solved in the ECAD domain.
To make ECAD clearance checking a possibility what’s that keeps a firm eye
on the final result.
needed are real-time 3D capabilities within the PCB editor,
plus the ability to import MCAD assemblies into that space.
Using the STEP format to bring, say, an enclosure model into
the ECAD domain, practical interference checking would then
be a reality in the 3D PCB design environment. If the system
is then coupled to user-defined clearance rules and 3D object
transparency options, a large part of the mechanical fit task can
be resolved in real time within the ECAD domain.
File exchange processes can be reduced or even eliminated by
introducing a further refinement: linking to 3D data files, rather
than embedding that data within the ECAD design files.
With a linked setup the ECAD application would simply load
data from an external 3D STEP file that has been generated by
the MCAD application. The PCB editor can then alert the user
when that external file changes, in response to an update from
the MCAD domain, then refresh the object in the PCB work
space and ECAD design files. This would occur in a real-time
3D design environment, allowing mechanical clearance errors to
be resolved on the fly rather than through a protracted series of
MCAD-ECAD design iterations.
Ultimately, the increasing importance of the physical
properties of today’s designs means that the interdependency of
the ECAD and MCAD design environments needs to be catered
for by systems that deal with the core problem directly. Most
existing systems that attempt to provide an MCAD-ECAD
solution take a piecemeal or add-on approach, and in the process
fall short of the mark or, at worst, create counterproductive
and error-prone workflow. As a result, intermittent design
concurrency between the domains is the best possible result.
What’s needed is a more unified view of the overall product
development process where the entire design is treated as a
single entity, with a single design data model. In this way the
solutions to the growing need for intimate MCAD-ECAD
connectivity come from a higher level view that considers the
final aim, rather that a closely focused approach of dealing with
the file exchange systems alone.
By implementing the groundwork of a robust 3D data
exchange format (STEP) and direct data transfer, the process
is simplified and can even be transferred to the ECAD domain
where it needs to be solved. In this way designers from both
domains can interact in a highly connected product development
environment that promotes concurrent MCAD-ECAD design.
As the electronics design industry continues to evolve and
design disciplines converge, it’s now crucial that all of the design
domains interconnect to a level where cooperative, concurrent
design is a reality. When previously disconnected worlds join
and work together the benefits are invariably profound and far
reaching – the world of electronics design is no exception.
Published: Circuitree, US, August ‘08

S4 ECAD-MCAD Collaboration 71
CSEM:
The Centre Suisse D’Electronique
et de Microtechnique bridges the
ECAD-MCAD divide.

"Altium Designer
allowed us to
develop a complex
What if consumers could actually wear electronics,
and have it incorporated into their clothing? The possibilities are
design comprised of enormous. Electronics in textiles holds great potential for several
industries, with everything from communications to medical
several printed circuit organizations weaving extra functionality into everyday fashions.
boards, without any Leading the field of electronic textiles for the medical industry
is the BIOTEX project, coordinated by one of Switzerland’s
errors. Because design leading research centers, the Centre Suisse d’Electronique et
revisions were de Microtechnique (CSEM). It aims to develop the world’s first
electronic textile sensors to measure and analyze biochemical and
completely avoided, physiological data, which will then help monitor a patient’s health.
we were able to focus As part of the BIOTEX project, CSEM needed to develop a
on making sure our portable electronic sensor interface. It was required to be as small
and as lightweight as possible, and remain noninvasive to the
project delivered all its patient. The challenge for the CSEM engineers was to create the
ambitious design two interconnecting boards and small connector board within its
compact mechanical case.
objectives."
To bridge the ECAD-MCAD divide, CSEM took advantage of
Jean Luprano, Altium Designer’s IGES and STEP file import-export functions.
Project Co-ordinator, These allow for greater design transparency between the
mechanical and electrical engineering departments. The electrical
CSEM department can now provide detailed 3D PCB data for the
accurate development of both mechanical and electrical designs.
Altium Designer’s 3D visualization engine lets engineers view the
PCB in a realistic form. Engineers can, in real-time, flip or rotate
the board and zoom in to view internal layers, and understand
the physical parameters of the board much more easily.
Altium Designer also provides CSEM’s electronics designers with a
suite of intelligent and powerful routing features that allow greater
board performance and optimize routing space. Altium’s Interactive
Routing feature integrates rules-driven, versatile interactive routing
modes, predictive track placement and optimized connectivity to
automate the routing process. Designers now simply watch as
the board routes itself with a 100% completion rate. And with
the focus taken away from basic functionality, CSEM can focus
on innovative design, ensuring its boards perform correctly
and to their maximum capacity.
The BIOTEX team was able to complete its portable
electronic device in just six months. The significance is
that the BIOTEX portable device is a unique design –
the electronics needed to interface sensors did not
previously exist on the market. Altium Designer also
afforded CSEM greater design flow efficiencies. The
traditional sequential process was broken down and
both electronic and mechanical developers could
work on their designs simultaneously to achieve
project goals.

72
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