-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssuePartial HDI
Our expert contributors provide a complete, detailed view of partial HDI this month. Most experienced PCB designers can start using this approach right away, but you need to know these tips, tricks and techniques first.
Silicon to Systems: From Soup to Nuts
This month, we asked our expert contributors to weigh in on silicon to systems—what it means to PCB designers and design engineers, EDA companies, and the rest of the PCB supply chain... from soup to nuts.
Cost Drivers
In this month’s issue of Design007 Magazine, our expert contributors explain the impact of cost drivers on PCB designs and the need to consider a design budget. They discuss the myriad design cycle cost adders—hidden and not so hidden—and ways to add value.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Media kit
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
E3.series 2025 Improves Design Efficiency with More Than Fifty Enhancements
October 8, 2024 | ZukenEstimated reading time: 4 minutes
Zuken announces the release of E3.series 2025, introducing enhancements to support the designs of complex wiring systems. From sheet area assignment automation to simplifying part placement, this release has more than 50 improvements to the functionality and COM interface, making designing more accessible, faster, and more flexible. The release adds new tools to the E3.series suite and includes several enhancements to existing tools. The E3.series 2025 release has updates to simplify the process for control panel and detailed cable designs.
"With the E3.series 2025 release, we've focused on giving our users more control and automation than ever before. These enhancements aren't just about keeping up with the pace of modern design—they're about staying ahead of it. From dynamic documentation tools to more precise wire routing and automated processes, we've delivered a solution that enables designers to work smarter, faster, and more accurately. This release is all about making complex designs more manageable and efficient, so our users can focus on innovation.", states Paul Harvell, Vice President of Engineering for Zuken USA.
Effortless Placement of Mounted Devices
Multiple enhancements simplify control panel layouts, several of which relate to device mounting slots. In the 2025 release, the first update to improve mounting devices is the ability to define names for a model's slots. These names are helpful when working with a model with several slots defined, as it can be challenging to locate the desired slot.
Users can view these slot names in the project folder, like the Device tree, and use them with the subsequent enhancement for easy placement. Designers can easily drag and drop the models of components from the library or existing devices directly to the slot of a model in the Device tree. The model is then physically mounted on that slot in the panel layout. This new capability results in greater precision and reduced design errors.
Also new in this release are the expanded alignment capabilities and center alignment options for manual component placement in a slot area. For example, if a user selects a mounting plate and executes an align command, all components attached to this mounting plate are aligned. The enhancement makes aligning and evenly distributing mounted components easier, facilitating more effective placement.
Simplifying Design Visibility
Many new enhancements in E3.series 2025 help the designer see important data more efficiently. Users can now see any additional parts designated on a device in the Device tree. Moreover, they can see information applied to these parts in the Info column, like the quantity or description. This visibility provides an overview of which additional parts are stored on what equipment in the project.
Some additional enhancements to heighten the user's visibility of the design details are the options to streamline the from-to information in the connection table and reports. Starting with the update to laying new cores of a cable, E3.series connects the same device on the same side for the "from-to" information of the cores. Previously, this direction was dependent upon the direction of the graphic connection line. The release also includes a new option to run a command that unifies the wire directions of a cable to the same side. Unifying the core ends in the "from-to" connection lists increases traceability.
Maximizing User Productivity
With each release, Zuken strives to increase user efficiency to help boost design productivity. Adding new hotkeys, toolbar commands, or features that reduce the steps to accomplish a task all aid in improving efficiency. The 2025 release includes the ability to swap out complete connectors plugged into a mating connector. Both connectors are changed whether users switch to a connector with fewer, equal, or more pins than the current pair. In previous versions, users might have needed to unplug or delete the connectors before changing them. This extra step led to longer design time, potential loss of information, and design errors. The new streamlined approach to changing mated pairs eliminates these potential risks.
In many cases, companies use different visibility options for printing to compare what they see while designing. They may want to print drawings that are less detailed for easy viewing or to share with an external audience and need to remove confidential information. With the E3.series 2025 release, a new setting is available to define the level configuration file (.vis) for printing and exporting PDFs and SVGs. This new setting simplifies the process by eliminating the need to switch the level configuration, making printing quicker and easier.
New Automation Capabilities
For our customers designing complex control panels and switchboards, using multiple sheets to divide the product is a typical practice. If the sheet area is incorrectly defined, users will encounter collision issues while placing the components. In E3.series 2025, the area of a new panel sheet is assigned automatically to the next available free area. This automation replaces the manual effort of defining this area to the new panel sheet and prevents overlapping issues downstream.
In the 2023 release of E3.series, we introduced the ability to define drill holes based on circle graphics. The 2025 release expands this capability to include other contour options, restricted areas, and cutouts based on existing polygon graphics. The graphics are often imported and available from a drawing file or when creating a model from the STEP import. Using the imported graphics to automate the addition of contours further improves the process of building accurate component models.
Suggested Items
2024 Charles Hutchins Educational Grant Winner Announced
11/01/2024 | SMTASMTA is honored to announce G. Çağatay Özşeker, a graduate student at Northeastern University, has been selected as the winner of the 2024 Charles Hutchins Educational Grant.
KLA Reports Fiscal 2025 First Quarter Results
11/01/2024 | KLAKLA Corporation announced financial and operating results for its first quarter of fiscal year 2025, which ended on Sept. 30, 2024, and reported GAAP net income of $945.9 million and GAAP net income per diluted share of $7.01 on revenues of $2.84 billion.
Benchmark Reports Q3 2024 Results; Revenue of $658 Million
10/31/2024 | BenchmarkRevenue decreased quarter over quarter primarily due to decreases in Advanced Computing and Communications (AC&C) sales, which were partially offset by an increase in Semi-Cap sales.
Robots in Logistics Boom Worldwide
10/31/2024 | BUSINESS WIREThe demand for robots for transport and logistics is increasing: Almost 113,000 robots were sold for transport and logistics tasks in 2023 – up 35%. These results are published by VDMA Materials Handling and Intralogistics Association in cooperation with the IFR.
TTM Technologies Reports Q3 2024 Results
10/31/2024 | TTM TechnologiesTTM Technologies, Inc., a leading global manufacturer of technology solutions including mission systems, radio frequency (RF) components and RF microwave/microelectronic assemblies and printed circuit boards (PCBs) reported results for the third quarter 2024, which ended on September 30, 2024.