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74 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2022 In our series of digital transformation col- umns, we've hit on several highly relevant topics that electronic systems design com- panies face today, including a look at supply chain resilience as a challenge and an oppor- tunity and then optimizing multi-domain co - de s ig n . Thi s month take s up another important new development: establish- ing component digital threads. The positive impacts on systems design companies and the electronics ecosystem will be revolutionary. Note: In this arti- cle, "compone nt" and "part" are used interchangeably. I can remember the days, as a young electrical engineer at a leading mil/aero com- pany, when the source of passive and IC device data for my circuit functional designs was based on the contents of a floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with data books of production parts from the leading semiconductor suppliers. e vertical search engine of the day was the simple stepstool I used to comfortably read the spines of the data books on the upper shelves. You trusted the data was accurate, especially the DC and AC switching characteristics and physical package specifications. Still, thankfully, access to electronics part data went digital and has been improving for many years now, so you can go to any number of compo- nent distributor or popu- lar industry aggregation web sites to accom- p l i s h y o u r c o m - p onent re s earch . The represented component sup- plier data is plen- t i f u l , a n d f i l te r - ing options make the data ea s y to search, but given the volume of data, it is too oen stale, incomplete, and hard to fully verify. Moreover, when a part is chosen, engi- neers and teams tasked with product creation must si through and interpret copious amounts of information presented in static PDF files that differ sub- tly in format, style, and naming conventions from one supplier to the next. With PDFs in hand and still needing to translate an idea Unblocking Innovation With a Component Digital Thread Digital Transformation by Matt Walsh, SIEMENS EDA