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80 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2021 the end, the CCA worked the first time. ere were no surprises or simple engineering mis- takes, as the CCA worked as anticipated since all the blocks consisted of already known and validated circuitry. e icing on the cake was that these re-use blocks are now available not just for this project, but all engineering teams within the company could take advantage of it in their respective designs. So, the potential savings to the company had even more of a long-term effect. Studies have shown that design reuse is an effective way to solve these classic problems. e Aberdeen study cited in Figure 4 showed increases in the percentage of product launches meeting their cost, schedule, and quality tar- gets when reuse was applied. IP reuse has been standard procedure in IC development for decades because complex- ity and engineering costs demanded it. So, it's not as if this is a new concept to the industry. With circuit board complexity and speeds rap- idly rising, the time has come to adopt simi- lar practices in the PCB design realm. Most new products are variations of existing prod- ucts, so it only makes sense to reuse proven circuitry from those products whenever pos- sible. Leveraging known good circuits in new PCB designs accelerates new product devel- opment and eliminates redun- dant effort. For example, once a power supply circuit is built and verified, why recreate it for every design that has the same power supply requirement? Leveraging certified circuits ensures they are high-quality, comply with company stan- dards, and use preferred com- ponents. In turn, this reduces verification time and avoids potential supply chain issues. For designs containing sen- sitive or restricted circuitry, formal manage- ment of reusable IP allows for proper track- ing of critical information such as the owner, operating characteristics, and any export con- trol requirements. All these benefits combine to reduce design time and product cost while improving quality. With up to 50% reduced design cycle time, the potential for reduced re- spins, and an increase in reliability and quality of designs, I highly recommend looking into design reuse as an option to design faster, bet- ter, and cutting cost in your company—pro- vided that your respective EDA tool can han- dle true design reuse and data management of reuse blocks, as well as a potential shi in your internal engineering culture toward the use of reuse blocks. DESIGN007 Stephen V. Chavez is a staff engineer at Collins Aerospace. Figure 4: The Aberdeen study showing percentages of product launches meeting targets when design reuse is utilized. (Source: Aberdeen)