The new standard for CAD models

Once an engineer has made the decision on which CAD tool meets his or her required levels of sophistication and budget, they begin what is often a career-long relationship with that CAD tool. Learning the particular interfaces and shortcuts as part of the design tasks is much like learning a foreign language, and seldom do people go through the effort of learning another, or if they do, they don’t get the chance to practice it very often. Because of the necessary investment in mastering their chosen package, many engineers become fervent supporters of their particular CAD tool, behaving much like fans of a football team. There are around 10 “Premier League” CAD tool vendors, occupying some 90% of the market, with a further ten to twenty making up the rest of the eCAD tool world.

Each vendor offers various USPs for their fans, and most vendors’ business model is to promote the awareness and adoption of their tool as far and wide as possible. Part of this strategy has required each vendor to develop a unique and exclusive format for the component models used within their tool. This practice ensures that designers become loyal to their particular tool through curating their model library and encourages more extensive use of the tool necessary to share and exchange compatible design files. Naturally, market fragmentation occurs as each CAD tool vendor does battle for global hearts and minds.

What’s the point of CAD models?

A component model comprises the schematic symbol and PCB footprint for the part, together with a collection of metadata. A consequence of the fact that the formats for these CAD models are unique to each CAD tool is that managing their CAD model libraries creates huge frustrations and hours of wasted time for engineers. Keeping up with the latest and greatest component technology means that models for new or previously unused parts are a frequent requirement. Obtaining a correct model in the right format for your CAD tool, ideally from a reliable source, has been a painful problem for engineers since CAD became popular in the industry. Until recently, engineers have had a variety of options to deal with this predicament:

1. Most CAD tool vendors offer the facility to import updated libraries of part models. Sadly these libraries are immediately rendered out of date simply due to component introduction and end of life processes. Even worse, the libraries are often quite expensive – understandably so, since creating thousands of models for parts they don’t even know will ever be used is time and resource-intensive for the CAD tool vendors.
2. Most CAD tools contain mechanisms for the user to create new part models to import into their libraries. Component sizes, shapes and pin-counts influence the time taken to create each model, sometimes meaning hours of design effort simply to build a single model.
3. Search the internet for a suitable model of exactly the part you need, in exactly the right format, from a credible, reliable source. The first port of call for this often is the component manufacturer. Still, the vast majority of those do not offer PCB CAD model support and those that do usually only support a default “in-house” format, largely depending on the CAD tool they favour internally.
4. Find a similar model and adapt it or translate it into your required format. That’s like #2 plus the time to search for and check the base model quality.
5. Subscribe to a component library management service. Only those with deep pockets need to apply.

So what’s the answer to this age-old industry conundrum? How can a single solution benefit design engineers, component manufacturers and CAD tool vendors? Why hasn’t someone solved this already? Actually, people have tried before, but sustaining the business model to suit all industry parties is a tricky one, and so compromises typically end up damaging the solution. The more significant answer is an evolution enabled by the internet and the power of the electronics community.

Samacsys has developed a service to provide PCB CAD models for every part in all leading CAD formats that engineers can use free of charge. The base format for each model is created and subsequently translated into the engineers’ selected CAD format. This is done through a set of rules and IPC-compliant quality checks developed by Samacsys working alongside the CAD tool vendors. In most cases, the solution integrates automatically into the library management system of choice. If in the case of a new component no base model exists for the part, the engineer has two options:

1. Instantly build the model using the online Samacsys creation wizard or
2. Request that Samacsys build the model in-house and publish.

In both cases, the model is built according to the most stringent rule and quality checks before being published for the entire user community to access. Once created, checked and published, each model is available globally for all to access. Discrepancies are corrected immediately in-house by Samacsys, and the model is re-published. Subsequently, every user that has downloaded the model will be informed.

Mouser meets Samacsys

As this is an essential piece of collateral needed by engineers to place a component within a design, Component Manufacturers are looking to include this as part of their design support packages. Those that don’t offer fast and reliable access to essential design support are well aware of the negative impact this has.

As for the CAD tool vendors, the resource overhead of managing an already massive and ever-growing library of PCB part models is a nightmare they are desperate to wake up from. Now they can happily offload the task by working closely with Samacsys to be a part of this solution for the industry.

In the end, it all comes together at Mouser Electronics. Each suitable component available on mouser.com has a link either directly to the existing model or allows the customer to request the model to be designed. This approach means a considerable advantage for Mouser customers!

Conclusion

There are so many better things electronics designers, manufacturers, or tool vendors can do than spending time and effort on creating and managing CAD model libraries. Samacsys and Mouser Electronics enable those experts to do their actual jobs: creating new technology to change the world for the better.

For more details click here.

Glenn Jarrett, Marketing Director, SamacSys

Glenn has spent his career in the electronics industry, working with high-tech companies in engineering design, sales and marketing. With a background in professional audio, working as a recording engineer for films and TV, his passion for engineering and the technology behind it led to several senior positions within the electronics industry, most recently with Avnet and RS Components. Having partnered with them during his years at RS, Glenn joined SamacSys in 2017 to help drive the awareness and adoption of their CAD model service across the industry.