In this PCB-centric design approach, the PCB, mechanical and supply chain teams work independently until the prototyping phase to integrate the work together, making it expensive to rework if something doesn’t fit or doesn’t meet the cost requirements.

This has worked well for many years. But the product mix is changing, with 2014 seeing a significant shift toward product-centric PCB design approaches, and 2015 is expected to see more adoption of this approach.

Let’s consider the system-level chip (SoC) ecosystem and product packaging. Socs have had a profound impact on the hardware design process.

With so much functionality integrated into a single SoC chip, coupled with application-specific features, engineers can use reference design to do research and development. Many products are currently using SoC reference designs and differentiating designs based on them.

On the other hand, product packaging or appearance design has become an important competitive factor and we are also seeing more and more complex shapes and angles.

Consumers are looking for smaller, cool-looking products. That means cramming smaller PCBS into smaller boxes with less chance of failure.

On the one hand, the soc-based reference design makes the hardware design process easier, but these designs still need to fit into a very creative shell, which requires closer coordination and collaboration between the various design principles.

For example, a case may decide to use two PCBS instead of a single board design, in which case PCB planning becomes integral to product-centric design.

This poses a major challenge to current PCB 2D design tools. The limitations of the current generation of PCB tools are: lack of product-level design visualization, lack of multi-board support, limited or no MCAD co-design capability, no support for parallel design, or inability to target cost and weight analysis.

This multi-design discipline and collaborative product-centric design process is a completely different approach. Evolving competitive factors and the inability of PCB-centric approaches to keep up with advances pushed the approach forward, requiring a more collaborative and responsive design process.

A key feature of product-centric design is that its architectural validation allows companies to respond more quickly to newer, more complex product requirements. Architecture is the bridge between product requirements and detailed design — and this is what gives products a competitive advantage if they are architecting well.

Before the detailed design, the proposed product architecture is first analyzed under multiple design criteria to determine whether it meets the requirements.

Factors that need to be reviewed include size, weight, cost, shape and functionality of the new product, how many PCBS are required and whether they can be installed in the designed housing.

Additional reasons manufacturers can achieve cost and time savings by adopting a product-centric design approach include:

2D/3D multi-board design planning and implementation at the same time;

Import/export STEP models that are checked for redundancy and incompatibility;

Modular design (design reuse);

Improve communication between supply chains.

These capabilities enable companies to think product-level and maximize their competitive advantage.