Barbara J. Burcham, C.I.D. Fairfield Industries, Inc 281-275-7687 [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: DesignerCouncil [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brooks,Bill Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 12:43 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [DC] PCB EDA survey... ? Quoted from an article I just read in a 'Planet Analog' Newsletter... Authored by Mike Santarini, EE Times --------------------- SAN JOSE, Calif. " Mentor Graphics and Cadence Design Systems took the lion's share of top honors in a PCB EDA survey, but Agilent EEsof garnered the top spot in customer satisfaction. The 2004 study commissioned by EE Times gathered data for three studies: an IC EDA study, this PCB study and for the first time a study on FPGA EDA tool usage. Separate summaries of the FPGA and EDA studies can be found on eeDesign. The "2004 board study" drew 628 respondents, including 436 from North America and 192 from Europe. Fifty-five percent of respondents identified themselves as design engineers, 27 percent as engineering management, 6 percent as general management, 4 percent as layout engineer, 1 percent as CAD manager and 8 percent as "other." Ninety percent of respondents said they are involved with PCB design while the rest are involved in layout. Respondents said they build boards for a wide variety of applications. But the bulk of respondents create boards for: the industrial control, test and measurement market; the consumer and automotive markets; communications equipment makers; and for military and aerospace. The study found that the average size of a PCB design team is four engineers, one more than the average in last year's study. Seventy percent of respondents said PCB projects are completed in three months or less, 23 percent said they complete them in 4-6 months, 4 percent complete them in seven to 11 months, while 3 percent said their PCB designs take "one to three years or more to complete." The median of eight months to complete a PCB design did not change year over year. Respondents said that 30 percent of overall design time is spent on schematic entry, 31 percent on PCB layout, 20 percent on test and manufacturing support, 11 percent on signal integrity analysis and 8 percent on "thermal/EMI analysis." The study indicates on average there are three PCBs in each system design, with on average one FPGA and one ASIC per PCB. North American PCB designs averaged seven layers, while European PCB designs averaged five, according to the study. Average clock speeds for designs was 125 MHz, up from an average of 93 MHz in 2003. On average, 16 percent of the networks in a PCB design were considered "high-speed." Fifty percent said they plan on engaging in the same number of PCB design starts in 2004 as they did in 2003, 20 percent said "more," 14 percent said "much more" while 7 percent indicated there will be "less" and nine percent "much less" than last year. Forty-nine percent of PCB respondents indicated that their tool budgets will be the same in 2004 as in 2003. Twenty percent said they plan to spend more this year, and 15 percent said they plan on spending "much more" this year. Nine percent indicated they would spend less than last year on tools and 7 percent said they would spend much less on tools than they did last year. Sixty-three percent of respondents identified signal integrity as a "very critical" issue in PCB design. Among vendors, Agilent EEsof rated the highest in customer satisfaction with 79 percent of EEsof users surveyed indicating they were either "very" or "somewhat" satisfied with EEsof tools. Mentor ranked second with a 75 percent approval rating followed closely by Cadence with a 71 percent satisfaction rating. The industry average was 65 percent, according to the study. Mentor Graphics took top honors in several categories including: best after-sales support, best documentation, most ethical company, best integration with other vendors' tools, knowledgeable sales reps and best training services. Cadence finished first as: current technology leader, technology leader in three years and clearest vision of the future, among others offers. Meanwhile Cadence spin out OrCAD, which is now largely under the control of a distributor, also garnered several top honors, including competitive pricing, vendor familiarity, product association, purchase consideration and product usage." ----------------------------------- Now, does this data look strange to anyone? Maybe a little skewed? Maybe it's just me... but nobody gives me 3 to 8 months to complete a board... how about you? Of course I don't use Mentor now or Cadence, I use Protel daily. But do you agree that their findings are ordinary or odd? And what about the 25 percent that did not feel they were satisfied with the tool? I wonder why? Let's ask the same questions of our member constituents... If you can spend a few minutes answer the following questions and see how it stacks up with their survey... this should be fun. 1) What is your Job title? Sr. PCB Designer 2) Are you involved in PCB Design or some other activity - (please indicate) PCB Design 3) What type of boards do you create? Boards for seismic data acquisition 4) How large is a typical design team at your company? 2-3. The desing engineer, me, and maybe another engineer for design review 5) What is the duration of your typical design time? This is, off course, dependent on size and complexity. Anywhere from 3 days to 6 weeks. 6) What percentage of the time spent is on Schematic Development? 5% I receive completed schematics, my task is to add footprint library information for successful packaging. 7) What percentage of the time spent is on PCB Design or Layout 85% 8) What percentage of the time spent is on Manufacturing support 5% 9) What percentage of the time spent is on Signal Integrity analysis 5% 10) What percentage of the time spent is on Thermal/EMI 1% 11) How many boards are typically in your projects? 5 12) How many FPGA's or ASIC's are used in your projects? Multiple FPGA's and BGA's on each board 13) What is the average layer count of your PCB designs 6 - 8 14) What is the typical clock speed or frequency your designs operate at? 1 Mhz 15) Do you consider your designs to be 'high speed'? No...only some functions. 16) Will you be doing much more, more, the same, less, or much less designs next year? The same 17) What CAD tool(s) do you use? OrCAD 18) Do you plan on spending more, same or less on CAD tools next year? Same 19) Are Signal Integrity tools important to the success of your board designs? No 20) Are you very satisfied, satisfied, or not satisfied with your design tools? Satisfied 21) What does your CAD tool do Right? Or Wrong? What do you like about it and not like about it. Great Post Processing tool, good customer support. Every new release has a new set of bugs that I have to discover and figure out how to work around. I am tired of that. This should be interesting.... let us know how you stack up against the EDA survey... similar or different? Enjoy. Bill Brooks PCB Design Engineer , C.I.D., C.I.I. Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 http://pcbwizards.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------- DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil. 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To set a vacation stop for delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------