The Design Office provides an on-demand design service by a team of specialised engineers, including:
- Complete PCB layout and mechanical design.
- Management of the CERN Altium and Cadence component libraries and library search tools (Component Libraries). KiCAD libraries are managed as a conversion from the Altium libraries, by the KiCAD team
- Preparing a project for production by finalising designs already created or partially created by the client (not preferred).
- All designs are given an EDA number and a complete set of documentation is stored on EDMS (including all production files, 3D renders, etc).
How to work with EPR
Location and Contacts
- Enquiries: service-electronics-design@cern.ch
- Location: 107/R-A10
New Design Introduction
To request a new design job by the Design Office, please fill out the attached form and email it to the address at the top of this page. Include a complete copy of your project design files, either by email or via a public CERNBox or DFS link.
To create a .zip package of your project in Altium: "Project" menu --> Project Packager (or right click oon the project in the "Projects" window then choose "Package Manager").
Background (updated 25/10/2019)
- 9 designers (including 1.5 dedicated to maintaining the Component Libraries) and 2 sourcing people
- 4 designers with 25+ years of CERN experience, 3 with 10+ years and 2 juniors (all from an external CERN sub-contracting firm , ACTEMIUM-BS, S144 contract)
- 3 electronics CAD packages: Altium and Cadence and KiCAD
- ~200-250 new designs (V1) per year
- ~400-450 jobs/year (including new designs, modifications and mechanics only)
- ~1000 to 1200 parts/year on Altium (since 2007/2008)
- ~200 to 300 parts/year on Cadence (25+ years old library, service insourced in 2011)
- >4000 individual projects since the year 2000 (EDA-04xxx-V1-0, not counting board versions or execution variants).
- 1 mechanical CAD package: !AutoCAD
- ~70% jobs include mechanical integration (usually a front panel)
- 1 !CAD2CAM software (!CircuitCAM)
- For generating colour coded production plans for all jobs
- Clients: CERN electronics designers from all departments and experiments (including high speed, RF, power converters, etc)
- Includes CERN collaborations (INFN, !IN2P3, Desy, Fermilab, HIP, etc)