May 2016 • The PCB Design Magazine 71
5
Beyond Design: The Need for
Speed—Strategies for
Design Efficiency
Years of experience with one
EDA tool obviously develops
efficiency, whether the tool
be high-end feature-packed
or basic entry-level. Howev-
er, there comes a time, with
the fast development pace of technology, that one
should really consider a change for the better to
incorporate the latest methodologies. This month,
Barry Olney will look at productivity issues that im-
pede the PCB design process.
6
Accelerated Designs Adds
Library Support for Zuken's
CR-8000 and CR-5000
Zuken's CR-8000 and CR-
5000PCB design platforms
will now offer users access
to more than 7 million sym-
bols, footprints and 3D STEP
models from Accelerated
Designs. "We are looking forward to a successful
partnership with Zuken supporting their CR-8000
and CR-5000 design platforms," says Frank Frank,
CEO of Accelerated Designs.
7
Cadence Expands OrCAD to
Address Flex and Rigid-Flex
Challenges
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. announced the Or-
CAD 17.2-2016 release with new capabilities for
OrCAD Capture, PSpice Designer and PCB De-
signer that address challenges with flex and rig-
id-flex design as well as mixed-signal simulation
complexities in IoT, wearables and wireless mobile
devices. This latest release reduces PCB develop-
ment time by addressing the need to design reli-
able circuits for smaller, more compact devices.
8
Designers Notebook: Flexible
and Rigid-Flex Circuit Design
Principles, Part 5
The outline profile of the flexible
circuit is seldom uniform. It may
have portions that maintain a uni-
form profile, but one of the pri-
mary advantages of the flexible
design is that the outline can be
sculpted to fit into very oblique
shapes. Vern Solberg explains.
9
Wild River: Simplifying SI so
Engineers Can Focus on Design
Al Neves is founder and chief
technologist of Wild River Tech-
nology, and he's a signal integ-
rity engineer who likes to tell
it like it is. So when I bumped
into Al during DesignCon, I
asked him to sit down for an
interview. We discussed the
paper he co-wrote for DesignCon and the chal-
lenges SI engineers are facing, as well as Wild
River's efforts to take the black magic out of signal
integrity.
J
DownStream's Fabstream.com
and Electro-Labs.com
Combine Resources to Launch
Solo-Labs.com
Two leading online resources targeted to the elec-
tronic engineering professional and enthusiast
combined resources today and launched Solo-
Labs.com. The new resource brings together the
assets of DownStream Technologies' DIY Maker
initiative Fabstream.com and Electro-Labs.com to
create a community-based portal where users can
find electronic design tools, resources, project tu-
torials and knowledge to create PCB-based elec-
tronics.
PCBDesign007.com for the latest circuit design news and
information—anywhere, anytime.
