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True MCAD-ECAD Architecture: A Common Sense Approach

In the fall of 1998, I authored a white paper about an entire design project that would be controlled by a single database, and all hardware and software design tools would “check in and check out,” only the design data that each engineering discipline needed. Within this universal database, all of this data fell into two categories: a) common data, and b) proprietary data (trade secrets and patents).

 I actually approached the CEO of the company I was working for several years ago (not my current employer) with this idea. Although he understood its merits, he did not attempt to fund this next-generation design environment or request that I submit a patent to protect it. Instead, he allowed me to introduce this concept to the body of the “corporate think tank” over several months.

Some feedback from forward-thinking people like me was very positive, but for the most part, I was greeted by skeptics who preferred to be naysayers. You know: “Too expensive, too this, and too that.”

In the 2000, all these barriers seemed to erode.

Click here to read the rest of this article, featured in the January 2015 issue of The PCB Design Magazine.