IDE with emulation!

[Luciano]

Hi Trent,

This already exists in the northern hemisphere!

http://www.labcenter.co.uk/index_uk.htm

Best regards,

Luciano

[mister_e]

and the west hemisphere wish you good luck with anything like that...

This would dramatically reduce the Overall cost of development.

no way for me! There's no time saving.. believe me... just hair lost at best.

No prototyping, go straight to PCB.

No f... way for me!

[T.Jackson]

Like it, love it or even hate it! It's what's destined for pretty much everything in the not too distant future. Most people have already started to welcome it.
It has only just started...

How can it reduce development cost?

1. Less time. Fewer overheads.
2. Fewer errors.
3. No need for developers to maintain an inventory of parts.
4. Existing designs are much more easily maintained.
5. Less staff (don’t know if this is such a good thing for society)

Best Regards,

Trent Jackson

[skimask]

Like it, love it or even hate it! It's what's destined for pretty much everything in the not too distant future. Most people have already started to welcome it.
It has only just started...

How can it reduce development cost?

1. Less time. Fewer overheads.
2. Fewer errors.
3. No need for developers to maintain an inventory of parts.
4. Existing designs are much more easily maintained.
5. Less staff (don’t know if this is such a good thing for society)

Best Regards,

Trent Jackson

Agree with mister_e 99%. Simulators might be a good 1st step, but that's it, an initial 1st step to see if an idea might even be remotely feasible. Relying on a simulator in my mind is false economy. 2nd step straight to the prototyping stage, not straight to a production PCB.

[T.Jackson]

Agree with mister_e 99%. Simulators might be a good 1st step, but that's it, an initial 1st step to see if an idea might even be remotely feasible. Relying on a simulator in my mind is false economy. 2nd step straight to the prototyping stage, not straight to a production PCB.

I have about 10 years of expertise with electronics and computers. There's a heck of a lot that I know and an equal amount that I don't. Over the years I have had a dozen projects published in the Silicon Chip magazine, and I've also been employed as an electronics technician in some previous job roles.

Often the people that I’ve worked around have reminded me that a lot of professional design engineers take their initial schematic and go straight to PCB. In my first technical role with a company called BEAR Solutions, I once threw my hands in the air offering to prototype some of their designs. In my spare time even. I figured I'd learn a thing or two. The response was very clear. We go straight to PCB; if the design needs corrections we simply modify the layout and request another 1 off board from our suppliers.

Economically this can work well, but only if you plan on ordering a specific quantity after the design has been perfected. At worst you'll be up for the tooling fee. Some manufactures may write this amount off or bury it somewhere into the actual total cost. Of course though, if your production runs small, or you have extreme doubts with the integrity / workability of your design, then this may not be a feasible approach. There’s a big difference between R&D and setting out to produce a product that uses known to be good and working technology.

All told, if you know exactly what you're doing then there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to go straight to PCB. (*Sure wish I did)

Best Regards,

Trent Jackson

[malc-c]

We go straight to PCB; if the design needs corrections we simply modify the layout and request another 1 off board from our suppliers.

So you could end up with half a dozen PCB's that are of no use what so ever and have costed you a small fortune for one off runs.. not to mention the time wasted in lead time from the PCB house. This would be fine if you worked in a multi-million pound company, but for hobby or small companies I still feel that breadboarding first is the way to go.

I used to work for a national defence organisation in the UK, and spent a lot of time in the labs with the engineers and designers. They would often supply me with the probervial "design on the back of an envelope" and I would first build the circuit on some strip board - they would then test it to see if it works as they predicted, and then it would be passed for prototyping - once the prototype board was etched and tested the first revison batch of PCBs were made. By the time the whole project had been researched and developed and then put forward for production the revison of the PCB may of changed five fold, but originally the concept was prototyped on a breadboard / stripboard first.

For hobby use - can't see the point of using a simulator. Breadboard the circuit, and test in the real world. Then build a prototype PCB and test that - it it works add the glitter round the edges (logo etc) and publish !

[T.Jackson]

If you anticipated on this then going straight to PCB isn’t for you. In fact, the anticipation of ending up with half a dozen unsuccessful attempts clearly spells out that there must be a lot of uncertainty in the design. Possibly due to the fact that it might be a large-scale project, or just a whole heap of research and development that’s required.

Consider this scenario:
You design say 5 new projects every month. On average, 20 discrete logic IC’s, Z80 microcontroller, 50 passive components to boot…

Now, in the real-World implementation phase you have 1 of 2 choices.

A) Employ someone to prototype it. Skilled person required. Might take possibly a week to Vero-board it.

B) Double check, TRIPPLE check your work and go straight to PCB.
Board comes back from the manufacture, fill it, solder it, test it and you’re done. Few hours work. Possibility you might get it the first time? For someone who really knows their stuff, yes I believe so.

Tooling fee is about $100. Of course though, this arrangement would only work if your design used existing technology. Otherwise there would be too much guess work involved and I would agree with your argument entirely.

Best Regards,
Trent Jackson