On this "black soil land", millions of engineers have cultivated "fruits of innovation".
Industrial software is the "brain and nerve" of industrial manufacturing, driving the efficient development of modern industry. As early as 1994, the world's largest twin-engine wide-body passenger aircraft, the Boeing 777, officially rolled off the production line, and its birth is inseparable from the support of industrial software. This behemoth has 3 million parts of various sizes. During the design process, engineers used 2,200 computers to simulate the designed items on the computer first, and then moved them to the production workshop. Moreover, 100% of the components, including the engine, were pre-assembled.
The application of industrial software has greatly improved the efficiency and quality of industrial manufacturing. Data shows that from 1980 to 2000, the widespread use of industrial software shortened the production cycle of new cars by 10 times.
In addition to aircraft, industrial software is also used in fields such as automobiles, construction, machinery, municipal engineering, and industrial design. Take the Bird's Nest, the main venue of the Beijing Olympics, as an example. It is entirely made of steel structure. Thanks to the support of industrial software, the steel can be kept both stable and aesthetically arranged.
Lin Xueping, deputy director of the Intelligent Manufacturing Research Institute of the Intelligent Manufacturing Society Consortium of the China Association for Science and Technology, once said that if the concepts of artificial intelligence and the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry are peeled layer by layer, what remains in the end is industrial software.
In today's era of globalization and rapid technological development, intelligent manufacturing has become a new driving force for the upgrading of traditional industries. It integrates digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, and cloud computing into the manufacturing process, thereby improving efficiency, reducing costs, and enhancing product quality.
Intelligent manufacturing is not only an embodiment of technological innovation, but also an important part of the new productive forces. It is a new production mode formed by the deep integration of digital technology and the manufacturing industry. It is also the main direction of China's new industrialization and an important measure to improve the international competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry.
As the carrier of industrial knowledge, industrial software is the core element to promote the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry, an important means to promote the digital transformation of the industry, and the soul of intelligent manufacturing.
JLCPCB, as a one-stop service provider for the electronic and mechanical industry chain, has independently developed an industrial software system from point to area, from the front-end circuit board design to the back-end circuit board manufacturing, providing a key opportunity for the innovative development of hardware.
Domestic Board-level EDA, the "Favorite" of Millions of Hardware Engineers
In the upstream of fields such as consumer electronics, automotive electronics, industrial instruments, medical equipment, and aerospace, a basic component - PCB - is indispensable. It occupies an important position in the development of hardware products and is known as the "mother of electronic products".
The design of PCB is inseparable from board-level EDA software. Electronic engineers need to design the schematic diagram, carry out the layout, and only after the design is completed can the PCB prototyping begin. Board-level EDA software is one of the necessary tools for creating circuit schematic diagrams. Using a computer to complete schematic design, PCB layout design, and PCB comprehensive simulation, etc., can greatly improve the design efficiency of electronic engineers.
JLCPCB EDA
JLCPCB, headquartered in Shenzhen, launched its independently developed board-level EDA - JLCPCB EDA as early as 2017, which integrates schematic design, PCB design, and circuit simulation. According to the needs of different user groups, it is divided into "Standard Edition" and "Professional Edition". Among them, teachers and students in universities, electronic enthusiasts and other groups can quickly get started through the Standard Edition, and designs with less than 300 devices can be realized; medium and large enterprises and professional developers are more suitable for the Professional Edition, and the design scale of 5,000 devices can be completed smoothly, and complex design requirements can also be met by rewriting the entire PCB editor.
A founder of a science and technology innovation enterprise mentioned JLCPCB EDA, "I started my business after graduation. When searching for PCB design tutorials on social platforms, I found that many UP masters would use JLCPCB EDA as an example," he said, "For beginners like me, JLCPCB provides a one-stop service from PCB design to manufacturing to chip mounting, which saves a lot of time and energy for start-up enterprises in prototyping and initial small batch production, and also has a certain guarantee in stability."
"Using JLCPCB EDA to draw the board, and get free prototyping. Compared with other EDA, JLCPCB EDA is more lightweight and fast. From drawing the schematic diagram to drawing the device, or drawing the PCB and the shell, the operation logic is quite handy," an Internet of Things device engineer also mentioned his experience of using JLCPCB EDA, "Especially when encountering some problems in the design stage, I can find solutions through the JLCPCB platform, which is very helpful to me."
JLCPCB EDA, developed based on the cloud, is simple and easy to use. Users can directly use it by opening a browser without the need for installation. Using the "cloud computing + EDA" model to provide EDA software services online not only frees the design work from the constraints of the physical environment, allowing users to view and modify their circuit designs anytime and anywhere, but also avoids the R & D risks caused by insufficient computing resources, process management and other issues. Moreover, team collaboration is also very convenient, which is an advantage that traditional board-level EDA tools cannot match. In addition, JLCPCB EDA also launched an offline version and a private deployment version to meet the diverse needs of enterprises at the levels of data security, storage space and management functions.
As the base for circuit board research and development and design, JLCPCB EDA industrial software has been recognized by more and more users, providing support for cultivating the innovative ecosystem of hardware engineers. As of the end of June 2024, the global cumulative registered users of JLCPCB EDA industrial software have exceeded 4.48 million, and the number of hardware projects facilitated has exceeded 30.56 million, increasing by 14.87% and 29.38% respectively compared with the end of 2023.
Focusing on PCB manufacturing, JLCPCB has also independently developed CAM software for analyzing and processing PCB production data. This software includes data processing and preparation, design rule checking, feature extraction and analysis, and manufacturing preparation. It can optimize and verify PCB designs to ensure their manufacturability and quality, and improve the flexibility of production. Relying on PCB manufacturing, JLCPCB CAM has been continuously verified by tens of millions of orders per year, and its functions are rapidly iterated, achieving a virtuous cycle of "production practice feeding back to software iteration and upgrade".
In addition, the company's ordering system integrates JLCPCB EDA's digital simulation engine and DFM inspection engine, which can realize the simulation, preview, analysis and inspection of the design effects of PCB and PCBA, facilitating customers to check for design defects before production, and the embedding of CAM tools in the engineering management system also significantly improves the company's engineering file processing capacity and production efficiency.
More notably, under the one-stop service of JLCPCB, users can directly place orders using JLCPCB EDA to realize PCB prototyping/SMT, or purchase electronic components. By combining industrial software with manufacturing, JLCPCB has built a highly flexible, intelligent and automated engineering management and production manufacturing system, which not only efficiently organizes the collaboration between production factors, quickly responds to the diverse needs of customers, but also builds a new capability of intelligent manufacturing, so as to continuously provide customers with "fast delivery, high quality, customization, and one-stop" products and services.
The "Rainforest-like" Hardware Innovation Ecosystem
Relying on the support of industrial software, countless hardware innovation products have already deeply entered people's lives.
Behind every innovation, there are countless trials and errors, especially for hardware products. Before mass production, engineers often need to design several circuit boards for experimentation in the early stage of research and development. However, at this stage, due to the generally small demand for the used circuit boards, traditional manufacturers are more inclined to undertake large-volume orders due to the high production line startup costs, and the prototyping needs of engineers are difficult to be met.
On the other hand, for rapidly iterative electronic products, if the prototyping circuit board has any problems and cannot be used, or cannot be delivered quickly, it will affect the research and development progress of the subsequent products.
JLCPCB Intelligent Panel Assembly Schematic Diagram
JLCPCB has developed the "Intelligent Panel Assembly Algorithm" in the aspect of production and manufacturing, realizing the combination of personalized customization and large-scale production. On a large circuit board, small circuit boards of different sizes and with different requirements are spliced together for production, and then cut according to the order requirements and delivered to customers. This greatly improves the production efficiency, saves time, and enables JLCPCB to complete the delivery in as fast as 12 hours.
In addition, to realize the functions of the circuit board, it also needs supporting electronic components. For this reason, JLCPCB has established LCSC, which uses the spot mode to quickly and efficiently meet the procurement needs of customers. The establishment of the integrated online service system can realize the online traceability of the entire transaction process, and solve and realize the problems and needs of users in the physical world on the Internet. Engineers can find the electronic components they need at home. It is both convenient and efficient.
In addition to circuit board design, production, electronic component procurement and PCBA, JLCPCB also provides services such as CNC, 3D printing, and even custom packaging boxes. By adding an ordering window in the design software, it meets all the needs of users from design to production, and each link supports small batch and personalized customization. Users only need to easily check the required services to meet all the needs from design to production and realize the landing of ideas into products.
Based on this, the engineer innovation ecosystem is bursting with new vitality. For example, the human-machine integrated biomechatronic prosthesis created by the Chinese scientific research team won the championship in the "Third Global Assistive Technology Competition"; the post-90s entrepreneurial team launched the world's first direct-drive self-balancing wheeled-foot robot, which replaces people in high-risk operations in various complex environments such as industries, mines and chemical industries; the internationally renowned industrial control enterprise launched a PLC solution for the control of the pump room and the management of the ventilation system of the East Artificial Island of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, etc.
As of the end of June 2024, the number of registered users of JLCPCB's online self-service ordering website has exceeded 6.2 million, an increase of 14.81% compared with the end of 2023, covering fields such as industrial control, consumer electronics, network communication, instrumentation, biomedicine, automotive electronics, aerospace, etc.