A little over a year ago, we were faced with the need to shorten design cycles considerably. We decided to implement a Concurrent Board Process (CBP) with the support of a Mentor Graphics Subject Matter Expert who was on-site for general PCB process improvement. The result is a CBP based on viewpoints using Mentor Graphics' scripts for locking and synchronizing the design.

This presentation will discuss the problems and successes we had while developing the process, which has become our standard design process. A design hierarchy / common function blocks methodology was also added with the CBP and the impact of that will be covered. Our process does not use Mentor Graphics' Workflow Manager or Board Architect, so their impact will not be discussed.

This paper includes "lessons learned" in the hopes of allowing other sites to implement this process with less pain than we had.

Bio:
Bill Bacher is Manager of PCB Design and EDA Support for Square D Company supporting design centers in Raleigh, NC and Cedar Rapids, IA. He has been using Mentor tools for 9 years, starting out with version 6.3, mostly using and supporting PCB Design tools.