The service will help an OEM get a product to market in less than six months, the company said. Typically, once an OEM decides what it wants, design has proceeded very quickly. Access to the services available from the Sweetcircuits Web site is free to qualified OEMs. Custom blocks or modules created by the customer can be added to the design, provided the tools used in the process comply with the ODBP format. Curran said Micro Industries, which specializes in custom design work, can also do the customization.
Customers can then have Sweetcircuits shop out the pc board and parts for a fee.
If users have a preferred contract manufacturer, Sweetcircuits, for a fee, will send the preconfigured schematics and design to that vendor. Curran said the modules that function under the hood of the tools in the online system are derived from Micro Industries' huge database of pc-board modules. Designed with a common rule set and interconnect scheme, the modules were created several years ago to get rapid design turnaround. Those tools are the Virtual Product Designer, Virtual System Designer and Real Sweet Designs. The Virtual Product Designer tool allows users to make pc-board choices and then generates a schematic.