Measures for Reducing PCB proofing Cost
A major trend is that PCB design is gradually inclined to open source hardware models and control systems Another major trend is the explosive growth of development boards More and more tools are used in PCB design This artICle will tell you how the industry has realized the layout of low-cost PCB design in the past 25 years
As PCB design is more and more widely used in existing development boards, and sub boards are used to drive hydraulic equipment and servo motors or perform tasks based on light, motion and sound, the trend of PCB design gradually tends to open source hardware models and control systems.
Another major trend in PCB design is the explosive growth of development boards. In October 2013, a survey was conducted on PCB designers around the world. The survey included professional engineers from 42 different countries.
The survey results show that nearly two thirds of respondents (64%) believe that development boards reduce the demand for customized PCB design to some extent. On the surface, this result threatens the development of PCB design, but the reality is that PCB design tools are being used in more and more development Board Designs.
However, PCB design has not changed fundamentally since its establishment In the field of technological innovation, PCB design has always been committed to reducing the cost of development boards and shortening the development time. However, the PCB layout is basically the same, and only the used components and product efficiency are constantly changing, which is the source of most design complexity
Circuit board

In the face of fierce competition, it is very important for engineers and managers to shorten the product design cycle. One of the issues most concerned by many companies is how engineers can obtain development tools that can shorten the time to MARKet and reduce design costs to deal with increasingly complex PCB designs. The design cycle has a great decisive impact on the time to market of products. PCB layout is usually used to compensate for the delay in the early stage of the design process. In addition, since the manufacturer's work place and design team are distributed all over the world, it is not difficult to imagine how difficult it is to obtain the best development tool, which challenges multiple design teams and the time to market of products.
To address these challenges, manufacturers urgently need development tools that can leverage existing resources, including manual and computer tools that allow interoperability. These development tools are easy to use, extensible, and can connect other time-consuming design stages in the design process. The effectiveness of PCB design tools often mentioned by engineers include:
Some of the available projects in the high-end market of the electronics industry can be used to analyze the actual design of the designer, how the chip performs its internal work, and how the chip responds to its surrounding products. For engineers, the problem is how they can achieve their goals with the least effort and error... Not a bit of luck.
Although there are a large number of commercial products in the market (most of them are very expensive, very expensive), only a few of them are reasonably priced... They not only integrate powerful functions, but also provide very low startup licensing costs. Product usability and other functions become more and more important, which can effectively accelerate complex design and reduce the initial cost of design.
The survey also investigated the factors that engineers preferred when choosing PCB design software, such as price, functionality, ease of use, service support, etc. The survey results clearly show that most design engineers pay more attention to function than price when purchasing design tools, and 60% of respondents believe that functionality is an "extremely important" factor. It has been providing users with super functional products, but for each generation of software products, meeting the needs of users has become increasingly challenging. What engineers need is a software product that can optimize design time and create more time for them to innovate and test.
EAGLE is loved by engineers around the world and is widely used to develop a variety of open source hardware collaborative engineering projects, including electric vehicles, formula racing, super microsatellites, commercial moon walks and other projects. The secret of EAGLE's success lies in that it is not only suitable for beginners, but also meets the needs of advanced users. It can provide them with a variety of options, greatly reducing the design and inspection process time.
The market provides a large number of completely free development tools for Linux, Mac and Windows systems. In the case of cost saving, which product functions will become the basis for engineers to purchase development tools?
Support function expansion
To be precise, analogies, data entry and output, and custom commands are all executed through user language programs (ULPs). EAGLE users have been working hard to achieve breakthrough innovation and improve the versatility of software by using hundreds of ULPs. For example, the newly launched EagleUp3D design converter enables engineers to export 2D layout drawings from EAGLE and import them into hUp such as Google Sk by clicking to create accurate 3D prototype SIMulation drawings. This allows users to integrate multiple circuit boards into the same model, allowing them to detect "collisions" between misplaced connectors and high-dimensional components, and also allowing them to determine the airflow around the equipment, the availability of testing and mounting points. These are particularly useful for design and development and for reassessing system level issues. EAGLE can also import mechanical format data from other manufacturers and provide all source code. The ULP structure enables users to further build customized designs that meet specifIC design requirements on the basis of existing designs.
Accelerate the design cycle
Engineers usually place components on circuit boards, then load schematics and place them on PCB to simulate their behavior. CADSoftEAGLE version 6.4 has recently adopted a series of functional improvements that allow engineers to easily use the linear technology's high-performance SPICE simulator LT SPICE, schematic input tool and waveform display. Users can now compare existing EAGLE schematics and start automatic conversion from EAGLE.
Get fast quotes or smoother design chains
Although engineers have developed material costs (BOMs) that meet the project budget and schedule, and are ready to start producing PCBs, they usually need to send material costs first, and then wait for a decision. In this regard, engineers urgently need to obtain special tools from reliable high-quality service partners, so as to quickly obtain quotations for SMAll batch PCB production and rapid prototyping services.
Large component library
This is critical to productivity because users cannot "design custom components" for each component they plan to add to the circuit. EAGLE has created a variety of component libraries. Users can also obtain component libraries directly provided by manufacturers or shared by users through the e-college community. Since it takes 20 minutes to create a small customized database for each component from scratch, if the component library can provide engineers with a rich information resource center and can be trusted and verified by active community members, it will provide engineers with an excellent design. It's a great help.
In order to simplify and speed up the design process, electronic design engineers can also use DesignLink (a special tool) to specify the components they need. By setting parameters, they can quickly search for appropriate components from the online product database of e-college. In addition, engineers can also obtain a large amount of scientific and technological information about components and products, including technical manuals, links to specific application solution guides, pricing and time to market, which can be obtained in the EAGLE design environment without having to jump to multiple web pages.
In short, with the continuous development trend of electronic design, core elements such as the function, availability and price of PCB products are still the most important factors for engineers