High Tech Industry Solutions

In consumer electronic industry, lack of coordination between engineering disciplines during product development process may result in design inconsistencies, delays and poor quality. Global Printed Circuit Board (PCB) engineering process, along with early and effective collaboration between ECAD (Electronic Computer Aided Design) and MCAD (Mechanical Computer Aided Design) designers, are critical to ensure a smooth integration of all product content.

Dassault Systèmes' High Tech Printed Circuit Board Engineering solution provides PCB developers with a single source of product definition during all product development stages, from design to production.  Concurrent PCB design is possible by managing schematic and PCB layout separately, while maintaining the relationship between them through annotation files.  EDA (Electronic Design Automation) applications from other vendors can also be managed in a design flow, enabling the designers to easily correlate changes in the BOM (Bill of Materials) to the impact it will have on the schematic design. 

This solution enables circuit board assemblies to be designed in the context of the mechanical design.  Mechanical engineers define the 3D shape of the printed circuit boards directly within the digital mockup, including the ability to design a flexible PCB. When the PCB design has been completed, its flattened definition is sent to electrical engineers for component placement and routing.  Upon completion of the layout design, the entire flexible board with its complete set of components is reinserted into the digital mockup.

Pertinent information such as spatial and technological constraints can be sent to the electrical engineers early on as initial design specifications.  Our solution standard (IDF)-based bidirectional interface allows for the electronic assembly to be easily imported from the ECAD system and placed within the digital mockup.  This cross discipline iterative process allows mechanical and electrical components to be designed for optimum fit in constraint spaces, typical in this industry, in a shorter amount of time.

Modern circuit boards are complex, multi-layered structures.  The design of flexible circuit boards poses challenges such as defining layer structure for optimal performance and calculating fatigue performance as the circuit board flexes.  Our solution includes state-of-the-art technique for modeling rigid and flexible circuit boards undergoing mechanical and thermal loading.