Store your invaluable data ready to (re)use

Hardware designers know how demanding it is to start a new design project from a functional specification. Typically, the first step is to gain a deep understanding of the functional requirements and then select the main components for the design. Many perceive this step as dull or even daunting due to the investigative and high work effort to find proven, released, and available components and reusable circuits. ECAD-tools are of little help in this process and engineers usually end up in detailed searches into previous design work. Worst case, the engineer does not consider reuse and starts to develop a new design from scratch instead, which often is a waste of time, expertise, and money. Once the design is done, it may be added to a project file or list of reusable blocks, commonly in Excel, for the next engineer with a similar problem to reuse ideas from the design. But will the next designer benefit from this knowledge and will he find what he needs? Probably not, which results in a spiral of inefficiency. This lack of easy access to all relevant product information and consistency hinders experts and engineers with different backgrounds to efficiently work on a project. We believe that engineers should get the support to let them invest their time into innovation instead, rather than searching for design reuse and ideas.

In this article you will learn about:

1. The right infrastructure for more efficiency
2. Your solution: CELUS Engineering Platform
3. Get even better with a reusability strategy across locations

The right infrastructure for more efficiency

Being able to promptly find modules that have already been developed with proven, released, and available components, not only saves the time of looking for components. It also indicates reasonable components to work with in the designed schematics and layouts. This means that the whole process of re-running simulations, testing, and adapting the design can be avoided and many hours of time can be saved. To achieve this, access to every developed and tested module to be able to reuse them is crucial.

If such access is managed through  a secured cloud system, not only everyone in the company can be provided access but a cloud system can also be used for sharing information in form of documentation. Therefore, using the cloud as a single-source-of-truth prevents confusion and misunderstanding due to different versions floating around in E-Mail inboxes. Consequently, a centralized database drives consistency across the entire company increasing the value of the company’s IP. But a cloud system is not only about storing your module data. For smooth reuse, a lot of information is necessary, such as a CAD file and all specifications for every circuit or component in the database. Hence, the ideal infrastructure consists of the right platform and format.

Your solution: CELUS Engineering Platform

CELUS Orbit is a system that allows your company to always have a healthy and up-to-date database without additional effort. We provide a structured model and wizard for each kind of data, such as components, reusable circuits, interfaces, sub-systems, and many more. This means that once an electronics engineer starts with a new project and defines the main architectural functions in CELUS Supernova, the system will already start to propose existing and reusable circuits to the engineer. This leads to tremendous time savings. At CELUS, these reusable circuits are called Cubos and they contain all relevant data that is needed to understand and easily use this model within a circuit. The holistic approach of Cubos goes beyond just saving CAD data and offers a smooth collaboration among engineers on multiple locations. Our secure cloud environment enables always up-to-date data and a structured process. No longer cumbersome excel files or long E-Mail chains. The core of our system comes in the form of CELUS Orbit in which all your component data and all your Cubos are stored. A database built with CELUS Orbit is perfectly compatible with the most common CAD-tools for full integration of the CELUS engineering platform in your toolchain. This enables an optimal flow of knowledge within your company. Unlock independent know-how management and boost your re-use strategy to never let your experts waste their time on doubled-work again.

Get even better with a reusability strategy across locations

A proper and holistic reusability strategy is key to unlock a teams’ full potential by avoiding doubled work. On CELUS Orbit, you can store and access know-how in a structured way ready to be accessed by everyone involved in a project. A wizard helps uploading all information as easy as possible, such as components, reusable circuits (Cubos), interfaces, layer stack-ups, etc. This prevents documentation inconsistency among teams and helps to keep all project members on the same page. As a result, reuse difficulties through missing information about the application of a module can be avoided and structured databases allow to easily find a reusable circuit. But let us even go one step further. Of course, a well-structured database facilitates your engineer’s lives by far, but keeping such a consistent system also enables AI-based algorithms to work with it. The CELUS Supernova algorithm can search for fitting components in the database stored on CELUS Orbit by only adding functionality in the user interface. Let us convince you about the next revolution in the electronics industry.