

The designer/tool relationship is partially broken and must be remolded.

Thus, every time a “new” version of a tool comes out, there is a cost. Engineers develop intimate relationships with their design tools, and resolved and inspired design work tends to flow directly from a mature bond between between engineer and tool. And, just as there is no “right” or “best” set of tools and materials for creating a painting, there is no “best” PCB design solution. The engineer’s experience, expertise, intuition, and creativity give the soul to the final design.ĮDA tools are the paints and brushes of the PCB designer. When an engineer sits down with a schematic and begins transforming it into a physical realization of fiberglass, copper, solder and components, there are an impossible number of constraints and tradeoffs to balance, and a practically infinite number of solutions that could result. There are an infinite number of paintings that could result, and the experience, expertise, intuition, and creativity of the artist give life to the finished work of art. A painter beginning a painting has only a concept, and the painter’s work is to transform that concept into a physical realization of canvas, oils, pigments, and brush strokes.
