CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
12 July 2007
Product News
EMA Now Offers SymXpert to Its PCB Design Customers; SymXpert Transforms Datasheets into Accurate, Consistent, EDA-Ready Symbols
EMA Design AutomationT, a full-service provider of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) solutions, announced that it will now offer SymXpertT from Perception Software to its customers. "Our goal is to provide as much automation to the design process as possible," said Manny Marcano, President and CEO of EMA. "Symbol creation is one of those areas that has been a 100% manual process, until now."
As large-pin-count components are more frequently used in PCB designs, the creation of schematic symbols for new parts has become increasingly time consuming and error prone. Typically, data for hundreds or even thousands of pins must be manually entered into a schematic capture program, painstakingly checked for errors against the original datasheet, and then partitioned into sections and formatted to meet company standards. For programmable devices or ASICS, this process must sometimes be repeated several times due to multiple design revisions.
SymXpert automates the symbol creation process by eliminating manual data entry and simplifying pin data verification. SymXpert dramatically speeds symbol creation with the following features:
Intelligent Content Extraction - SymXpert's intelligent content extraction technology automatically extracts pin information directly from suppliers' datasheets, eliminating the need for manual data entry. SymXpert can also read and compare data directly from FPGA log files.
Data Validation - Despite suppliers' best efforts to ensure accuracy of their technical publications, datasheets can and do contain errors and inconsistencies. SymXpert checks all data extracted from datasheets for the most frequently occurring problems (i.e., missing pin numbers, duplicate pin numbers, etc.).
Rule Based Graphics and Pin Arrangement - SymXpert's Advanced Fill Capability uses the power of user-defined, regular expression-based rules to automatically set pin attributes such as whisker type and pin graphics in accordance with symbol creation standards. Auto Arrange allows the designer to specify pin arrangement preferences and then applies those preferences to all symbol sections.
Template Driven Generation - Templates ensure symbols are created consistently to the same design standard. EDA-to-EDA property mappings allow symbols to be created once and then be exported to multi-EDA environments.
"By streamlining the creation of symbols for new parts, SymXpert helps reduce design bottlenecks and eliminates opportunities for errors that can cause downstream manufacturing problems," said Joe Dalton, CEO of Perception Software. "Customers easily speed up the symbol creation process by a factor of 8-24 times, freeing up engineering time for more critical design tasks."
For additional information, visit http://www.ema-eda.com/ or call EMA at 800-813-7494.
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