Peer-to-peer communities are a key enabler of modern PCB design, but aren't being fully utilised

Peer-to-peer communities are a key enabler of modern PCB design, but aren’t being fully utilised, reveals CadSoft survey. The company marks its 25th anniversary by revealing the findings of its global survey of PCB designers.

A recent CadSoft (Premier Farnell) survey found that 83% of respondents consider online peer-to-peer communities to be “vital” or “important” to their work, yet nearly half (41%) remain inactive on such sites.

Meanwhile, 42% of respondents thought social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook influence their designs as a resource for gathering product news, design hints and ideas in much the same way as forums. Yet almost the same amount - 36% - think social media isn’t important at all because there is too much “noise”.

Commenting on these findings, Thomas Liratsch, managing director at CadSoft Computer, said: “25 years ago, PCB designers didn’t have the luxury of online forums or social media. It’s clear that the vast majority see the benefits nowadays, but a surprising number simply aren’t engaging with these channels. As a result of this disconnect, online community sites such as element14 remain very much an untapped resource to a generation of PCB designers. CadSoft has, from its early days, been very interactive with EAGLE users through dedicated support forums. These have always been well received by our users, giving them the opportunity to get answers to their questions and to suggest improvements to the software.

“Some of the stigma attached to social media channels like Twitter perhaps stems from a lack of understanding and suggests people don’t know how to filter out the irrelevant content and narrow the information streams to really focus on key influencers and like-minded peers. Twitter isn’t just for teenagers and pop culture.”

Other notable findings from the survey include:

• Nearly two-thirds of respondents (64%) think development boards are reducing the need for custom PCB design.
• 74% respondents are targeting control system applications with their design and almost half (46%) are involved in open-source hardware.
• The majority of designers would put functionality before cost when buying design tools, with 60% of respondents rating functionality as an “extremely important” factor.
• 87% cited improved library management and speedier part creation as desirable or extremely desirable features for future versions of CadSoft EAGLE.
• The majority surveyed (30%) work on 1-3 new designs or updates in a year, while 24% are working on 10+.
• element14 was voted the most popular online forum for PCB designers.

Ed Robledo, general manager of CadSoft USA, added: “The huge explosion of development boards, which our survey suggests is reducing the need for custom PCB design, is actually proving to be a big opportunity for us, with CadSoft now used for more and more development board design. It goes to show that while the electronic design landscape continues to evolve, there are still core requirements such as usability which remain as important as ever. Historically, this has always been CadSoft’s strength - the ability to provide functional software which optimises an engineer’s productivity.”

The survey, conducted on SurveyMonkey in October 2013, included responses from professional engineers from 42 countries. Full results of the survey can be viewed via this slideshare.