Results of PCB Design Survey

Results of PCB Design Survey

We recently sent a survey on PCB layout to a set of customers. The results identify trends in the areas of: layout design time; collaboration; advanced manufacturing technology adoption; and IP management.

Layout design time

This first area was intended to explore where time is spent during layout and where major bottlenecks exist.

• Time spent on layout activities: In the chart below you can see traditionally high percentages for placement and routing. Constraints and plane design are more recent time sinks – the presumption is that this is due to the increasing volume and complexity of high-speed constraints, and the growing challenge of power integrity. An assumption could be made that the tasks that now consume less time (e.g. documentation & mfg outputs) are a result of increasing automation in these areas.

• On average…
  • It takes 4.5 weeks to layout a board (21% took more than 9 weeks)
  • Designs have 3 to 5 ECOs after the initial layout is complete (33% experienced more than 6 ECOs)
  • 35% of total design time is spent in layout (30% said layout consumes more than 50% of the total)
  • 30% of layout time is spent on high-speed constrained nets
  • 15% of layout time is spent breaking out of high-pin-density components
  • 74% of routing is manual (50% said they do >90% manual)
  • 11% of a design is based on re-used data

Collaboration

This section discusses the changing face of collaboration during the design process including most frequent forms of collaboration and their benefits.

• Time consumed by different areas of collaboration: The traditional interchange between engineering and layout topped the list. Multiple designer layout is an emerging challenge. As noted earlier, perhaps ‘design to manufacturing’ consumes less time now due to automation.

• Most commonly used platforms for collaboration: Email (80%); Conference (61%); DXF, IFF, IDF, etc. (43%); Design viewer (34%); Visio (14%). Other methods noted included: MS Sharepoint/Communicator; A Wiki for collaboration of changes; spreadsheets; and Gerbers, pdf, or trackers (common interacting document).

• Common barriers to effective collaboration: Ambiguous communications (50%); Lack of shared knowledge (43%); Change control (32%); Inefficient data transfer (32%); Geography/time zones/shifts (27%); Validation & signoff (23%); Implementation of recommendations (23%). I’d equate the top two to two people speaking to each other in different languages – they want to communicate, but don’t have a common platform through which they can understand each other.

• Benefits of effective collaboration: It’s no surprise that ‘Reduced design time’ was at the top of the list given the time crunch most teams are under. Of course, since collaboration with others can often be time-consuming in itself, it puts added pressure on the process to streamline the method in which people work together.

Advanced manufacturing technology adoption

Industry technologists have been talking about the advent of ‘advanced’ PCB manufacturing technologies for a long time, yet adoption of these technologies doesn’t seem to match their projections. This section looks at barriers to deployment, as well as reasons why some new technologies are being adopted.

• Things that drive more complexity into the design process: Design density (#pins, pin density, connections, spacing, board size) (93%); Increasing constraints, performance (86%); Use of advanced mfg technologies (HDI, flex, embedded passives, COB) (56%); Complexity is the same, just have less time (16%); Distributed design teams (14%); Other areas included: DFA and DFM; mixed signal design; and increased RF design.

• Advanced PCB manufacturing technologies utilized in designs: HDI/microvias (75%); Chip on board (34%); Embedded passives (23%); Package-on-package (18%); Embedded actives (7%); Cavities (16%); Other areas included: SoC; OSP finishing; flex; back drilling. One also noted that they tried to find innovative ways to avoid HDI – given the cost of advanced technology deployment, sometimes the leaders are the ones getting designs done without incurring the time and cost of a new technology.

• Biggest barriers to incorporation of advanced PCB manufacturing technologies: Cost of implementation (57%); Insufficient knowledge (55%); Lack of expertise amongst fabricators (48%); Insufficient tools/solutions (36%); Benefits of new technology unknown (18%). Others included: need to minimize risk; need to maintain higher yield (higher clearances); “K.I.S.S. methodology works best”; lack of collaboration between design tools and fabricator; and reliability concerns.

• Benefits of incorporating advanced PCB manufacturing technologies:

IP management

This last section reviews forms of intellectual property (IP) management, with a focus on design reuse.

• Frequency that design reuse is incorporated into the design process:

• Main drivers of reuse: Reduce design time/costs (95%); Capturing organizational knowledge / best practices (55%); Reducing product costs (45%); Higher product quality (34%); Reduction in component diversity (27%). Others included: Leveraging proven ideas and design consistency (I’d put these under ‘best practices’); and ability to scale designs quickly.

• Barriers to effective data reuse: Poor upfront capture of reuse blocks (59%); Difficulty finding the blocks you need (39%); Difficulty storing reusable data in a central repository (36%); Can’t understand the intent of the reuse block (14%); Not motivated to reuse other’s work (9%). Others included: Tool limitations; Schematic only fits partially, layout fits less; Reuse isn’t beneficial within service companies; Technology moves too fast to re-use older designs; Multiple layer stack-ups to manage; Several customers to support; Takes a lot of time to update complex reuse blocks.

• Most valuable forms of design IP: Component libraries (43%); Design data (27%); Design processes (14%); Reuse block libraries (7%); Constraint sets (5%); Flow customization (2%).

• Existence of a centralized PCB parts library in the company: Yes (84%); No (16%).

My thanks to those who participated in the study. We’ll be exploring some of these challenges (and potential solutions) in a webinar series.

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