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Max Clemons

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Most Recent Posts

Collaborative Design Part 3: Crossing the ECAD/MCAD Bridge

Collaborative Design Part 3: Crossing the ECAD/MCAD Bridge Interfacing between electrical and mechanical design software is one of the most important forms of design collaboration in modern electronic design. As PCBs become smaller and more dense, and as mechanical housing restrictions become tougher, there is a great need for seamless design data transfer. For the third installment in this blog series, we'll take a look at some of the options available for crossing the boundary between electrical and Read Article

Collaborative Design Part 2: Building a Better System

Collaborative Design Part 2: Building a Better System The effectiveness of design collaboration is mostly determined by the structure and organization of the system back-end. For the second part of this blog series, we'll take a look at the best structure and practices for version control, and how this really forms a good basis for collaboration. Enter in the lifecycle management and enhanced administrative functionality of a real design release, and you have an even better foundation. From my Read Article

Using Configuration Management to Reduce Design Errors and Promote Re-use: Part 1

Using Configuration Management to Reduce Design Errors and Promote Re-use: Part 1 A Configuration Management system can be used, along with an existing Design Data Management system, to further promote good data integrity. So just what is Configuration Management, and how can the general principles be applied to an electronic design environment? This blog series aims to answer some of the questions surrounding this topic, as well as provide a basic framework for easily integrating a useful Configuration Management system. A[a] Read Article

Practical steps for creating embedded components with side-emitting LEDs

Practical steps for creating embedded components with side-emitting LEDs To meet the demands for product miniaturization, more people are turning to an embedded component. Embedded components (sometimes referred to as embedded passives when it's just a capacitor and resistor) are surface mount devices that can be added to inner layers of a multi-layer PCB, with cavities in the surrounding dielectric layers to allow them to be embedded inside the final PCB stack-up. Additionally, people are turning designs with a shift Read Article

Collaborative Design Part 4: True ECAD/MCAD Collaboration with IDX

Collaborative Design Part 4: True ECAD/MCAD Collaboration with IDX True ECAD MCAD collaboration is more than just preserving details when moving between design environments. Visibility into design changes, comparing and merging capabilities, revision tracking and commenting are all key elements of collaborative design as well. In the final part of this blog series, I look at how IDX might be the best solution yet. In the last part of this blog series, I dove into ECAD MCAD collaboration market, and why it’s so Read Article

Collaborative Design Part 1: Designing PCBs as a Unified Team

Collaborative Design Part 1: Optimizing PCB Design in Teams Electronic design isn't a solo gig anymore. Teamwork among dozens or hundreds of designers, engineers, suppliers, manufacturers, and any number of other people is essential for bringing a product to market. This blog series explores the ways to cut through the barriers and reduce some of the tedious back-and-forth dialog that slows design cycles to a crawl. In part 1, we'll take a look at what kinds of features make for effective collaboration Read Article