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APRIL 2024 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 95 into account the license cost as well as operational costs such as IT staff, equip- ment maintenance, training and power 11 . 4. e security and reliability of cloud- based tools is improving, making them more attractive to businesses. For exam- ple, security is being incorporated contin- uously starting at the development stage and across the entire lifecycle of soware tools, instead of being almost an aer- thought. And frameworks like custom- ized cloud disaster recovery strategies and secure access service edge (SASE) are now commonly implemented as part of the adoption strategy for cloud-based tools. ese trends indicate that the market for cloud-based tools will continue to grow at a rapid pace in the coming years. In light of the pressure on the electronics manufactur- ing industry to increase productivity and effi- ciency as noted earlier in this paper, EMS com- panies are increasingly adopting cloud-based solutions to help them streamline their oper- ations. EDA is Moving to the Cloud As the world increasingly moves toward cloud-based services, more companies are finding that their electronic design needs can be met using cloud-based tools and platforms. While there are still some companies who cling to on-premises electronic design automa- tion (EDA) tools, the trend is definitely mov- ing toward the cloud. Examples of companies that are making the switch to cloud-based elec- tronics design include: • Autodesk: In 2015, the company announced that its AutoCAD3D design soware would be available as a cloud- based service. Since then, the company has released additional cloud-based design tools. • Siemens: e company's NX design so- ware is now available as a cloud-based service, and it offers various cloud-based design tools for several of its other products. • PTC: e company has also been mov- ing to the cloud with its electronic design offerings. Its Windchill product lifecycle management (PLM) soware is now avail- able as a cloud-based service, and it has been investing in other cloud-based design tools. • Dassault Systèmes: e company's Solid- works soware is now available as a cloud- based service, and it is investing in addi- tional cloud-based design tools. • Cadence: e company's Allegro and OrCAD EDA soware products are now available as cloud-based services, and it has been investing in other cloud-based design tools as well. It is not just soware companies that are shi- ing EDA to the cloud. In May 2022, Advanced Micro Devices announced it would move some of its EDA workloads for chip design onto a public cloud. Its stated reasons for the move were to extend the capabilities of its own data centers and gain advanced networking, stor- age and artificial intelligence capabilities. The Next Logical Step: Moving Design for Manufacture (DFM) Analysis into the Cloud Following the general trends of cloudifica- tion examined in this paper, we propose that DFM analysis is the next logical step in tak- ing PCB design and manufacture to the cloud. ere are many reasons to do this, but the most compelling are speed, collaboration, scalabil- ity, and accessibility. Speed is perhaps the most obvious reason to move DFM to the cloud. With on-premises solutions, engineers must wait to requisition, install, and configure the necessary soware, which is oen a time-consuming step. With a cloud solution, they can get started immedi- ately. But speed is not just about getting started