Mentor Graphics Cuts PCB Design Time by Allowing Multiple Designers to Work Simultaneously in a Single Design Environment
WILSONVILLE, Ore.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 29, 2004—
Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT) today
announced XtremePCB(TM), the first product in a series of printed
circuit board (PCB) design solutions using a technology that allows
multiple members of a PCB design team to work simultaneously on a
design from a single database on a global network, whether they are in
the same office or dispersed all over the world. The first product to
use new Mentor Graphics(R) patented technology, XtremePCB addresses
the layout portion of the design flow. It allows electronic companies
to significantly reduce their design cycle time, to meet today's
accelerated time-to-market demands.
"XtremePCB allowed us to have two designers working simultaneously
on the design of a complex board and reduce our layout cycle time by
40 to 50 percent," said Ian McCormick, CAD manager, Radstone
Technologies. "The flexibility and ease of implementation of this new
method also allows me to better manage my CAD department resources."
"Previous design collaboration methodologies required lengthy and
error prone sessions to resynchronize parallel efforts of PCB design,"
said Henry Potts, vice president and general manager, System Design
Division, Mentor Graphics. "With XtremePCB, Mentor has answered a
challenge posed by our customers who asked for a tool that allowed
simultaneous changes from multiple team members. For our customers
with aggressive time-to-market goals and either large, global design
teams or technology specialized design resources, XtremePCB enables
real-time, automated feedback for complex, PCB designs incorporating
diverse design technologies."
A New Paradigm for Simultaneous PCB Design
Previous team design methods utilize a "split and join" approach
in which designers work concurrently on the PCB, but in their own
pre-defined partition and without the ability to view each other's
edits in real-time. Even a simple design change made in a single
partition could affect the entire board and cause the design to first
be re-assembled and then re-partitioned before the team can continue.
As a result, engineering change orders (ECOs) become an all too
frequent liability, occurring many times throughout the design
process. There are also other inherent limitations when splitting the
design, such as dealing with boundaries, moving parts from one area to
another, or performing drafting functions on the whole design.
XtremePCB overcomes these limitations by allowing every designer
to work on the entire board if desired, making partitioning
unnecessary. With XtremePCB, users are immediately up and running
because the Xtreme session runs in the background of a designer's
Mentor Board Station(R) RE or Expedition(TM) layout tools. Any member
of the design team can start a design session or users can join the
session at any time. The design is first loaded on the server and when
a user joins the session, the most current state of the design is
automatically downloaded onto the user's workstation, allowing them to
utilize the full processing power of their machine. When a user joins
a design session, a "handle" is defined which may be displayed
attached to the cursor for designer identification purposes.
Synchronization is done automatically and each designer can see
all other edits in real-time. The session server provides a
methodology to protect users from timing collisions and edit conflicts
through selection priority and design rule checking (DRC).
Additionally, team members may temporarily lock down objects by
creating protected areas, use standard networking methods to verbally
interact with team members via headsets, or display "force fields"
around the cursor indicating where each designer is working. When a
significant change to the design is made that affects the other Xtreme
clients, a notification is sent to all the other clients allowing them
to accept or reject the change.
XtremePCB is compatible with a variety of network environments,
including symmetrical multiple processors (SMP), local area networks
(LANs) and wide area networks (WANs).
Design Process Benefits
Aside from providing significant reduction in design cycle time,
XtremePCB offers a unique benefit to a company's design process. With
XtremePCB users may enter and exit designs at will, allowing designers
to better utilize their time on projects as well as enable companies
to take better advantage of a designer's singular expertise. Before,
when a digital PCB needed a designer to add a small analog section,
the design would be halted, while the analog portion was placed on the
PCB. But with XtremePCB, the analog designer can enter the session
when required, complete the necessary design changes and then exit
without interrupting the other designers working on other parts of the
board. This flexibility also frees up designers to work on multiple
projects at once, moving from the more urgent projects to the less
urgent projects as they wish.
Pricing and Availability
XtremePCB is available immediately as an optional add-on to Board
Station RE or Expedition. Pricing starts at $50,000 for the Xtreme
Session server and pricing for each XtremePCB client seat starts at
$15,000 per license. More information is available at
www.mentor.com/xtremepcb or by calling 800-547-3000.
About Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT) is a world leader in
electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products,
consulting services and award-winning support for the world's most
successful electronics and semiconductor companies. Established in
1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of about
$675 million and employs approximately 3,800 people worldwide.
Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road,
Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777; Silicon Valley headquarters are
located at 1001 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, California 95131-2314.
World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.
Mentor Graphics and Board Station are registered trademarks and
Expedition and XtremePCB are trademarks of Mentor Graphics
Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered
trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.
Contact:
Mentor Graphics
Debra Layton, 720-494-1014
debra_layton@mentor.com
or
Weber Shandwick
Emily Taylor, 503-552-3733
etaylor@webershandwick.com
