Cubos vs. ordinary reusable blocks

Know-how and finished (+tested) Designs are the electronics companies’ most valuable Intellectual Property (IP). Especially in times of skill shortage it is crucial to not develop every electronics design from scratch as this would cause avoidable doubled work. Therefore, many companies tried to find a solution and created reusable modules. For example, Altium created Snippets and Autodesk created Modular Design Blocks for Eagle and Fusion360. They are indeed a first step into the future as they help to reuse blocks in other projects, which means electronic devices can be developed faster and more economically. So, the engineer’s expertise is reused and consequently, the goal is achieved, right?

We must get better

It is true: The crucial idea of Design Reuse is fulfilled by being able to save ready-to-use circuits in the personal CAD editor. However, this still leads to various obstacles electronics engineers are facing – even though it is a step in the right direction to not waste time of highly skilled employees.

Firstly, engineers still have to reevaluate the compatibility between all components within an ordinary reusable block. Secondly, the engineer is not only responsible for the compatibility, but also for the connections to the other modules used in the design. Thirdly, schematics and layout have to be synced manually after finishing the design. And fourthly, library management is often still very ambiguous and sometimes even confusing to handle.

All in all, we can set: There is still a lot of manual work to be done in every single design process.

CELUS approach

At CELUS, we tried to solve these problems and invented Cubos! Our Cubo offer several advantages. On one hand, the main purpose is Design Reusability. On the other hand, CUBOS go a step further on all fields that had been mentioned above. Cubos are not only modules saved in a database, but rather they are enriched with the knowledge of the engineer, who developed them. Therefore, every Cubo contains all information about the components, interfaces, specifications and functions. This makes Cubos not only easily reusable for different projects, but also for the AI-based CELUS algorithm. CELUS Supernova will automatically choose the most suitable compatible module for the specific PCB-layout. This only takes a few seconds, because the algorithm is finding all information about compatibility of Cubos and their specifications in place.

Structure in the background

All of this is only possible due to a sufficient structure in the background. This is why another key element is a smart data management system: CELUS Orbit. The intelligent system is cloud-based so all engineers are working with current data. This concept allows to practice Design Reuse in the way that offers the best outcome. Incidentally, this does not mean know-how in the design process is now obsolete; rather, time is created to invest the expertise into new projects.

This is also the case in our first case study with Viessmann! Read here how the CELUS Engineering Platform works in detail and which advantages it offers: