Application of SolidWorks in the design of automotive electronic products

Trends in automotive electronic design
In order to shorten the time to market and take the lead in the competition, automotive electronics designers need to respond to the ever-changing needs of the electronics industry.
The continuous development of electronics and semiconductor technology has led to rapid changes in electronics, mechatronics (the collaboration of electronic machinery, electronics and software) and tools for designing parts systems.
The product needs to have more functions, but the product size cannot be larger than the previous products and competitors’ products, or even smaller. Competition is driving the electronics industry to develop smaller but more functional equipment. This requires that product design tools can “more economically use” physical space.
More functions usually mean higher complexity of electronic products and parts that need to emit heat. Due to the market demand, even if new functions are added to the new model, the size of the product shell cannot be increased, but it needs to keep the original size unchanged, or even become smaller. In addition, higher packaging density requires higher level of detail at the component level to optimize proper fluid analysis.
Some new global environmental standards have emerged, such as RollS (Restriction on the Use of Hazardous Substances). This directive restricts the use of lead and other substances harmful to the environment, and requires that all products sold and processed in the EU market must comply with the regulations since July 1, 2006.
随着微控制器系统的不断小型化，越来越多的传统硬件组件（如开关和显示器）正在被软件功能所取代。比如几年前，需要一组12个按钮来操作某个产品。现在，两个按钮加上一个 LCD 屏幕就可以做到这一点。
汽车电子行业的挑战
由于电子行业的技术进步，ECAD系统变得越来越复杂。它们越来越成为专家系统，要求操作员非常专业才能使用它们进行设计。
由于机械工程师和电子设计师使用不同的系统，这些系统之间缺乏互操作性，导致重复工作，需要花费过多的时间在它们之间转换数据。
由于电子工程和机械工程 CAD 系统之间缺乏互操作性，因此创建了低效的产品，因为电子和机械设计师将加入产品。重复元素”以弥补两个系统之间准确信息的不足。
In order to sell products in the global economic environment, international standards are being expanded to include not only DIN. ANSI and ISO, but also RoHS (Restriction on on the Use of Hazardous Substances). In order to provide products to the market in a timely manner, it is necessary to know that electronic parts and materials comply with this standard at the early stage of the process, because this involves cost and procurement issues.
Many electronic components have not yet formed a unified industry standard. Now, more and more 3D models have been built, but together with geometric data, there is no standard to specify how to transfer those non-geometric features embedded with components (such as materials, standards to be followed, sources, etc.).
Automotive electronic design process
Product development cycles are becoming shorter, so the challenges and deliverables you face at each stage of the design cycle are different. You need to complete more work in less time. Let’s take a look at the basic electronic product development process.
Determine component specifications – First, propose new product concepts. This can be to improve the product currently offered, or to propose new original concepts (breakthrough technologies). The specification of a part can be determined at the beginning of a project, but it is more common to follow the concept. The determination of part specifications is a preliminary attempt to define product concepts, aimed at effectively transforming concepts into actual products.
The next stage of packaging design is regarded by many people as the core of conceptual design in the product design process. This stage of the product design process can be expanded to include its own process, but for the design of electronic products, industrial designers and mechanical engineers determine the appropriate concept (this concept meets the requirements specified in the product brief, and also is suitable for the required square inch area – the data is initially provided by the electrical engineer), and then obtain the prompt about the size and shape of the circuit board through them.
PCB design – If packaging design is the core of the product design process, then PCB design is the core of the electronic design process. After the preliminary PCB layout (together with the positions of main components, connectors and switches/interfaces) is handed over to the electronic engineer, the electronic engineer is responsible for the detailed design of the PCB and its interconnection. It is almost inevitable that the PCB designer will make many minor (sometimes major) changes to the position of parts designated by the mechanical engineer. In addition, it is necessary to designate a collision avoidance area, and the electronic engineer and mechanical engineer should reach an agreement on this to avoid encroachment and tracking area. After that, the preliminary design is returned to the mechanical engineer through IDF.
Making prototype – At a certain stage of the product design process, the design must be “realized” in the form of physical prototype. The prototype has various forms, from the mechanical shell to the circuit test board, and then to the one-time, full-function “close to the production state” working model, and so on. This is an important milestone in the design process, and all disciplines are integrated into a unified solution. The mechanical housing, PCB and interface prototypes serve different important purposes, including fitting and trimming, thermal analysis, functional analysis (stress, drop test, etc.) and assembly-oriented manufacturing. The prototype is also used in key research groups to verify the concept.
Deliver to production – finally, make customer documents and manuals. This is another time-consuming and tedious process. If design changes occur later in the development cycle, these manuals must also be updated to maintain the BOM information for spare parts and repair processes.
Of course, this is not a linear process. Driven by many factors, there are always many design iterations to be carried out, and these factors include: changes in customer requirements; Internal engineering design changes: and changes requested by the manufacturing department and suppliers.
CAD/CAE integrated solution
SolidWorks provides solutions that can interact with electronic product design, shorten the preparation period, and reduce the number of expensive prototypes to be made during the entire design process.
Customers expect more functions to be included in the product, which forces electronic product design manufacturers to include more functions in the product, but the size of the product shell is similar or smaller than the previous model. This change, coupled with the pressure to bring the product to market faster, requires designers and engineers to complete the conception and design in a shorter product development cycle and deliver with a higher packaging density. You need to complete more work in a shorter time. SolidWorks Office Premium can help you achieve this goal.https://forum.stoneitech.com/
You cannot spend weeks bidding on projects with customers to determine part specifications. SolidWorks can quickly search past 2D and 3D designs to find relevant benchmarks so that you can leverage previous projects to bid. By easily locating similar projects in the past, you can quickly generate bidding engineering drawings, estimate project costs more effectively, and ensure revenue. 3 DContent Central provides a large number of online components that will help you quickly start and determine more accurate specifications. If you are searching for outdated document catalogs and then contacting the supplier to obtain the latest version, you may also need to design the purchased components to match the overall design, which can waste some time. SolidWorks provides Toolbox and 3DContent Central, allowing you to locate and import standard components (connectors, switches, brackets, IC components, etc.), and download these components directly into 3D designs. Therefore, you can focus on designing rather than recreating OEM components. You can provide more accurate bids before competitors; The digital version of design provided by eDrawing can help customers gain a deeper understanding of the design process. In addition, eDrawing provides annotation functionality. Faster response and better customer interaction will help widen the gap between you and your competitors. The digital version of design provided by eDrawing can help customers gain a deeper understanding of the design process. In addition, eDrawing provides annotation functionality. Faster response and better customer interaction will help widen the gap between you and your competitors. The digital version of design provided by eDrawing can help customers gain a deeper understanding of the design process. In addition, eDrawing provides annotation functionality. Faster response and better customer interaction will help widen the gap between you and your competitors.
Package Design SolidWorks provides you with a fast, flexible and easy-to-use solid modeling system, which allows you to easily and quickly make prototypes for electronic design. SWIFT technology can help you achieve the correct design intent, thus helping you focus on leading the competition and ahead of customer needs. In the process of design rather than using MCAD system. The multi-body modeling method allows the conceptual design of different components to be completed quickly at the part stage (without moving to the assembly stage), thus speeding up the design process. When you work in the assembly phase, SolidWorks allows you to use interference testing to dynamically position components, so that you can easily fill the PCB with main components. PDMWorks tracks the version changes of the entire design to ensure that you can track your own design. The relevance of solidWorks means that once a change is made to a specific part or assembly, the change will be propagated to all appropriate documents and drawings, including the drawings of parts and assemblies, NC documents and customer manuals.
Although SolidWorks does not meet the requirements of creating PCB layout in terms of function, the industry standard is that MCAD designers provide preliminary PCB layout and provide interoperability between mechanical engineering and electronic engineering. SolidWorkS reads in the lDF file. As CircuitWorks joins the SolidWorks package, we can provide additional interoperability between the mainstream ECAD package and SolidWorkS. The strength of SolidWorks world-class solid model solutions, combined with the ECAD system, ensures that you can design more high-quality electronic products faster without worrying about the repetitive labor and inefficiency problems caused by the non-interoperable system.
After completing the preliminary design through prototyping, a physical prototype can be produced for concept verification. SolidWorks provides many tools that allow you to create “virtual” prototypes of designed products, thereby reducing the number of expensive physical prototypes. Advanced collision detection tools, combined with COSMOSWorks and OSMOSFIoWorks for structural strength, vibration, and thermal analysis, can help eliminate guesswork and problems even if you have not yet made a physical prototype. When physical prototyping is required, the collaborative combination of part modeling, sheet metal, wiring, and component assembly creates a unified, fully defined, and completely redefined model. Customers can modify this model multiple times as needed to solve the problem,
Delivery and production SolidWorks is very good at automatically creating part drawings and cable harness drawings, and can completely record your products. Even if changes occur at the later stage of the design cycle, the modifications and changes made to the parts and assemblies will automatically update the documents and drawings, and will be managed by PDMWorks Enterprise, so as to ensure that the suppliers get the latest information. PDMWorks Enterprise manages all aspects of design, from 3D parts, assemblies and engineering drawings to assembly manuals, to maintenance documents, and so on. SolidWorks is committed to enabling customers to successfully complete their work and transfer the final design to other industries. This is why SolidWorks provides a large number of conversion formats (ensure that your SolidWorks design is correctly and accurately converted to other manufacturing systems).
A large number of user data show that the automotive electronic design solution with CAD/CAE integration has the following significant effects:
Shorten the start-up time of new users by 50% – SolidWorks has one of the shortest learning curves in the industry. Mechanical and electronic designers without previous MCAD experience can easily master the use of this tool in a week.
Reduce the cost of CAD license and maintenance – Compared with any other MCAD system on the market, SolidWorks allows customers to get the maximum value with the least money. SolidWorks&COSMOS provides unparalleled functions for electronic designers.
Shorten the design cycle by 40%, enhance the aesthetic feeling of the product and improve the packaging efficiency – Since electronic design starts as a series of solid models, and is maintained as an integrated, fully redefined solid model assembly throughout the design cycle, dynamic interference and rich measurement tools can be used to understand the exact spacing and location, thus optimizing PCB, discrete parts and interface parts.
Reduce development costs by up to 30% – Because SolidWorks can “make virtual prototypes” to test interference, heat and assembly problems, it can eliminate most of the guesswork work before making the actual physical prototype, thus reducing the number of times to repeatedly modify the prototype.
The processing and development time is shortened by two to three weeks SolidWorks provides the manufacturing department with very detailed and complete data specifications, as well as innovative and easy-to-produce parts and assembly drawings, and also provides eDrawing and the broadest data conversion function in the industry.