Pete,

I guess I've had trouble with the Benchmark in the past because I don't
really get the point of what they are benchmarking. All the winners and
placers are very complex boards, but why did they win? Complexity? Passing
RF tests? Functionality in the field? Ease of fabrication relative to
complexity? Ease of assembly? Time frame start-to-finish vs. pin and layer
counts? these are the things I care about as a designer.

Maybe I just don't read the benchmarking articles well enough. I use the
tools I must use for a given job, for a given customer. The technical and
procedural articles in PCDMAG I pay close attention to, but a benchmark
won't help me when I am told "Customer X wants his schematic created using
Tool Y and the board done using Tool Z". OK, fine. I am conversant in many
tools and programming languages. Maybe if I was in sales or purchasing the
benchmarks would mean more, but how many EDA salesmen and/or buyers (i.e.
the guy who actually approves the P.O.) read PCDMAG? I wonder.

Jay DeKing
EMA Mid-Atlantic, Inc.
(716)334-2970 voice
(716)334-3481 fax
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