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34 The PCB Design Magazine • July 2014 With the traditional PCB design process, the designer executes each stage of the design in se- quence. But, as designs become more complex and time-to-market schedules become more de- manding, we must take advantage of pre-layout simulation, and simultaneous process design in order to beat the competition. The pressure is on engineering managers to achieve more with their existing resources, although the de- sign tasks have become more complex with in- creased levels of functional integration. Concurrent design is the practice of devel- oping products in which the different stages run simultaneously rather than consecutively. It decreases product development time and also the time-to-market, leading to improved pro- ductivity and reduced costs. Concurrent design is a relatively new process strategy and although the initial implementation can be challenging, the competitive advantage means it is benefi- cial in the long term. It eliminates the need to have multiple design iterations, by creating an environment for designing a product right-first- time. Typically, a high-speed computer based product takes two to three iterations to develop a working prototype. However, these days the product life cycle is very short and therefore time-to-market is of the essence. One board it- eration can be very costly, not only in engineer- ing time, but also in the cost of delaying the product's market launch. This missed opportu- BEyOND DESIgN feature column by Barry Olney in-CirCuiT DEsign PTy lTD AusTrAliA Concurrent Design Figure 1: Traditional design process compared to the simultaneous design process.