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CAD for industry

ECAD and MCAD collaboration

Leverage industry-leading inter-domain collaboration to bring your most innovative products to life.

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ECAD and MCAD collaboration with Siemens

Create, validate and test complex electro-mechanical designs with Designcenter. By leveraging the collaborative environment in Designcenter, you can enable real-time collaboration between electronic and mechanical engineers in cross-domain teams.

With our open approach, you can exchange data from Designcenter with any of the leading ECAD tools and vice versa, but choosing both Designcenter and Xpedition software from Siemens enables even greater collaboration and exclusive access to unique functionalities.

Benefits of multi-domain MCAD-ECAD design collaboration

A graphic representing electronics CAD part design (PCB) with mechanical CAD.

Collaborate with Designcenter and Xpedition to enable a proposal/response loop to run as often as needed while exchanging only incremental/update information.

With Designcenter and Xpedition, you can:

  • Visualize and immediately identify issues within a 3D environment
  • Propose incremental changes from either domain​
  • Review and validate proposals before implementing changes​
  • Accept or reject proposed changes​
  • Synchronize data between ECAD and MCAD​
  • Track the decision process with collaboration history

Mechanical-electronics design

It’s no secret that products today are increasingly complex with many, if not most, reliant on integrated electronics. An efficient ECAD-MCAD co-design process enables you to eliminate costly electromechanical issues during new product development by giving a holistic view.

Electronics modules in Designcenter

Explore the electronics-specific add-on modules available in Designcenter. For more information, check out the add-on modules fact sheet.

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Designcenter MCAD and ECAD collaboration features

A common ECAD and MCAD parts library

Access a common library containing single item representations of part footprint, symbol and attributes.

Multi-directional collaboration

Collaborate in a synchronous or asynchronous use model while working in your native software environment.

Integrated BOM

Generate a complete product level BOM containing all the electronic and mechanical part information.

Two engineers looking at electronics parts.

Product designs with Designcenter and Xpedition

Choose the right tools for your team. Having advanced MCAD and ECAD toolsets for your team is not enough, what matters most is how you use the tools and how they enable effective communication and foster strong collaboration between mechanical and electronic domains.

Integration between Designcenter and Xpedition takes collaboration to the next level by breaking down the barriers between electronic and mechanical design domains, enabling seamless data exchange and real-time collaboration. This tight integration helps you optimize designs within tight form-factor constraints while meeting quality, reliability and performance requirements. The iterative communication process between the two tools enable you to reduce risks of costly design re-spins and accelerate time-to-market.

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Case study

ASML

An ASML Twinscan NXT:1950.
Case Study

NX certification improves design proficiency at ASML

Company:ASML

Industry:Electronics, Semiconductor devices

Location:Veldhoven , Netherlands

Siemens Software:NX, Simcenter 3D Solutions, Simcenter Femap, Teamcenter

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