I/O, I/O, it’s off to work we go…
I/O, I/O, it’s off to work we go…
Last week, I interviewed two designers at Broadcom for a customer success story. This was another very interesting project and the empirical results of their story are quite impressive.
The focus of the Broadcom story is I/O Designer. If you’re not familiar with “IOD” and you design boards incorporating FPGAs, ASICs or any large-pin-array IC, you really should take a look at our I/O Designer webpage.
The drift of the story is that, although they have used Expedition Enterprise for several years, this was the first time that they had used IOD. One common thread amongst Mentor customers is that out products are easy to learn and easy to use. Broadcom was no exception and they found themselves up and running, doing pin swaps, within minutes. But that’s a rather ho-hum story.
The real story is about time…and we all know that time is money! Using estimation rules-of-thumb that had been derived from years of project design experience, the budgeted 960 hours to design the PCB. Instead, they finished in 320 hours. Yep, that’s 67% under budget!
Now, we can’t guarantee everyone will cut two-thirds of their design time by using IOD, but you certainly will reap significant improvements. This wasn’t a “cherry picked” story; we see astonishing numbers like this all the time. Mentor’s Chairman and CEO Wally Rhines told me that when he asks customers what their favorite PCB product is, the majority say, without hesitation, “I/O Designer!”
Preparing RecommendationsStill…IOD seems like a stealth product. Expedition is a household word in the PCB design world, and HyperLynx is nearly so when it comes to analysis and simulation. Meanwhile, the down-in-the-trenches IOD labors away saving time and costs without the same fanfare.
Check out I/O Designer yourself. If it were a sports figure, it would certainly be called the “most underrated in the league.” And, watch for the full Broadcom story on our website in the near future.
About Mark Forbes
Mark has worked in the electronics industry for more than thirty years, beginning while in college. The first 8 years of his career was spent in R&D, where he received his first patent for a remote communications system for reading electricity meters. During that time he also worked on the weapons management system for the F-16 fighter. He then moved into product marketing, eventually leading a team of 6 product managers. For two years, he shifted gears and was editor-in-chief of a computing industry trade magazine. The 16 years prior to joining Mentor Graphics Mark spent as a consultant, working for Microsoft, Intel, Sharp, HP, and other industry-leading companies. Mark’s career ranges from laying PC board with red and blue tape to defining five-year product plans.
Mark earned a BSEE degree from Bradley University in Peoria, IL, and did MBA work at the University of Santa Clara. Mark has written five books, including three university-level textbooks, more than 115 technical and business articles, and has been issued two patents.
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