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34 The PCB Design Magazine • August 2015 Matties: i think there's a transition, because one of the things you mentioned is that design- ers have been doing it for 20 years. that's in- dicative of the age group of a lot of designers. We've done surveys and we see a lot of them are closer to retirement years, so is there a new group of designers coming in that's going to think differently? Viklund: I hope so. We're starting to see it a little bit. Matties: alex, what are your thoughts on this? Alex Caravajal: Going back to that calculator discussion, I don't know if you've ever seen this kind of diagram. This is the system imple- mentation diagram. Everything starts off with a concept and an application. The real issue is that you go from a spec sheet, a back of napkin, and a brainstorming session, and know we have an idea. That idea needs to be implemented, so I called it the de-aggregation process. The de- aggregation process takes the concept, the idea, and now implements it in terms of software/ hardware. Yes, you can build constraints, you can make specifications, and then the engineers and programmers have to interpret that. This process kind of walks you through that. It's sort of like when you said it is kind of like a calculator, if you understand what needs to be implemented and how it needs to be test- ed. As we work our way in the de-aggregation from the concept through software, through the hardware, system modeling—does it meet the right cost? The right performance, the right size, and form factor? How do we define that? Then we start implementing that in PCBs, ICs, maybe some chips. When we work back, now I have chips, I have boards, and now I have to reassemble it to represent the original concept into a system. This is really what this process is. This is where the engineers live down in here. Matties: this is a process regardless of what tool you're using. Caravajal: This is a process for engineering, and we layer it back to you. In the real world, it goes from the architectural implementation into the hardware implementation, and the whole sup- ply chain that supports it. You buy chips, and you buy EDA tools from Mentor Graphics or any of our partners or our competitors for hard- ware implementation. This process, one way or another, has to be implemented to get from concept to a real working product, whether it's a large computer system, a smartphone or what- ever. Matties: recently, we surveyed the PCB design community to ask what the greatest challenge is, and many designers said that data was their no. 1 problem. they say they don't get the data soon enough. someone says what they need, but there's no concurrent engineering, and this looks like what you're talking about. You start at that level. feature MENTOR GRAPHICS HELPS BRIDGE GAP BETWEEN PCB AND RF continues Figure 2: Alex Caravajal, business development manager at Mentor Graphics.