Joe Clark Says DownStream Is Ready for More Growth in 2020

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Dack: Right, right.

Clark: We go back upstream, we make the change in the design database and in fact we can cross back to the design database and that's where you want to make the change. So the iterations are much faster and it's not an end-of-the-line check that you do, which means I’ve got to come all the way back up. I can do these checks as I'm doing the design. There's an implicit ease-of-use requirement there because I'm going to pick this tool up, use it a little bit, put it down and back and forth.

Dack: And everybody that I know that is using the tool, full disclaimer! I'm a user of the tool and I love it. I'm a user of BluePrint-PCB and leveraging the database, going back to the source database and being able to pull that information in that has been updated dynamically. A time-saver.

Clark: Think about your documentation. Once I do my documentation, if I make any changes, especially if you contract me, if I make any changes downstream from the original design, most of that documentation traditionally is throwaway, and I’ve got to start over.

Dack: Right.

Clark: Well, when we use the intelligent formats and a tool like BluePrint, we can take that updated design database, read it into BluePrint and it will update the documentation for us, saving us just huge amounts of time and reducing errors. There's really very little return on good documentation, is there? It's a requirement, but it raises my costs but it should lower my manufacturing costs if I do good documentation.

Dack: It should be easy to do, hands down. It should be easy to do.

Clark: But it’s the hard part of the design.

Dack: Most CAD tools have just not done a very good job with drafting. They’re design tools, layout tools, not drafting tools.

Clark: Yes. We came from PADS Software and the gestation of BluePrint was our customers constantly asking us for better documentation tools. And we were a layer-based tool, and we had signal integrity issues to deal with and libraries and so on. It just wasn't logical that we were ever going to make our CAD tool also be a good documentation tool. Something had to suffer.

Dack: The evolution of engineering manufacturing integration. I walked by your booth a little earlier, as I did last year. I happened to see a little 3D action going on and other stuff.

Clark: A big part of the growth is that we added 3D capabilities to the tool suite in 2019 and that's helped propel our growth. And there are several reasons for that. One is just consistency. 3D has been used now in the mechanical world for a long time. It's now moved into the electrical world and for consistency, we should be able to use 3D to show the PCB as it will be manufactured.

Dack: So you can actually split it and pull it apart and do details…

Clark: Add components, remove components, stack-up, visualize it for defining my cause and creating a handshake to my fabricator for the materials that I'm going to use. Because I can exchange that with the 2581 database.

Dack: For a lot of us who haven't purchased or gone into the other products that you have. I'd like to give a nod to Ray Fugitt, who is doing your demos online. I called you and he's created a video right away to show me how to do something in CAM350. So I'd like to thank you for that, as a designer.

Clark: Well, you're very welcome. And Ray has almost 20 years of experience as a PCB fabricator, so he really knows the business and is a great resource, absolutely.

Dack: Well, best for 2020.

Clark: Again, we had a banner 2019 and it was every quarter of 2019 and it's continued into 2020. And in 2020 we have another major release coming out, which will coincide with the support for rigid-flex in 2581. So we'll be rolling out support for that and embedded components which are becoming mainstream. And more and more companies are dealing with it, not just the aerospace.

Dack: I just heard one of the materials talks that was about embedded components. We used to look for people who are using them, and now I'm seeing lots of people using them.

Clark: Yes, exactly. We're seeing the same thing with flex.

Dack: Well, Joe, thank you.

Clark: Always a pleasure.

To watch this video interview from IPC APEX EXPO 2020, click here.

 

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