CadSoft

25 years of Innovation

• November 2013 marks the 25th anniversary of CadSoft EAGLE

• To celebrate, we surveyed engineers involved in the field of PCB design to get a snapshot of the industry trends in 2013

• Here we present our findings.

Celebrating 25 years

What did we find?

Respondents are fresh faced....

79% of respondents have worked in the industry for under 10 years

98% of respondents were male

...and largely male...

We received responses from 42 different countries

...and span the globe.

They are targeting a variety of applications...

Audio Video Control sys-tems

Open hardware

Robotics Energy harvesting

Lighting Imaging0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

A massive 74% are targeting control systems in their designs

...mainly control systems...

46% are involved in open hardware

...and open-source hardware applications...

Nearly a quarter work on 10+ designs a year

...with many being prolific users

30%

29%

17%

24%

1-3 4-6 7-10 10+

Why do they choose

CadSoft‘s EAGLE software?

They consider functionality as the key reason...

Extre

mely Im

portant

Importa

nt

A little

bit importa

nt

Not that

importa

nt

Not at a

ll importa

nt0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

PriceEase of useFunctionality/performanceSupport

87% want improved library management

...and know exactly what they want added next.

73% want an improved user interface

What trends are they seeing in the industry?

• 64% believe this to be case– With more than a third believing dev boards have

had an enormous impact.

Dev boards are reducing the need for custom PCB design...

• 83% agree this is the case– A quarter believe they are essential.

– element14 was the most popular forum by far (45%)

...and peer-to-peer communities are important...

Despite acknowledging the importance of P2P communities, 41% say they are not active participants

...but that doesn‘t mean they‘re using them

Whilst the majority say they do not value social channels…

Meanwhile the industry is split over the value of social media

…42% admit they have an influence and use these channels for design inspiration…

Meanwhile the industry is split over the value of social media

…with only 36% saying they are not important at all.

Meanwhile the industry is split over the value of social media

This suggests designers are struggling to filter out the noise on these channels and

focus on following design influencers.

Meanwhile the industry is split over the value of social media

25 years of milestones

• As well as surveying our customers, we wanted to reflect on the history of CadSoft

• We‘ve built an interactive timeline to highlight just how CadSoft and EAGLE have developed over the years

www.cadsoftusa.com/about-us/

25 years of milestones

Still growing at 3x the industry rate

Some facts:• Founded in 1988 in Germany by two engineers• Headquartered in Pleiskirchen / Germany

• Development located in Germany• Offices in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; Richfield, Ohio; and Munich, Germany

• Strong user base• Acquired by Premier Farnell in 2009 as a key part of its support for the

whole design process

For 25 years CadSoft EAGLE has been satisfying design engineers around the world by offering the same core functionality as expensive commercial PCB design software at a fraction of the cost.

www.cadsoftusa.com

About CadSoft

• EAGLE is an acronym and stands for:

Easy Applicable Graphical Layout Editor…which also works in German:

Einfach Anzuwendender Graphischer Layout Editor

• Easy, affordable way for customers to implement board designs– one fifth the cost of some competing design solutions

• Makes finding & ordering components faster and easier• Sold as “perpetual” licenses with maintenance & support included• Integrated into element 14

– Support forums on “the knode”, parts libraries, PCB service– Connected to the Premier Farnell webshops

• One of only few design tools for Mac (also runs on Windows & Linux)• Sold by design modules with multi-seat licensing

About EAGLE

• All images are sourced, with thanks, via the Wikimedia Commons image library project, except for:– Slides 16 & 17, credited to Farnell element14– Slide 4, credited to Flickr user ‘Meggy’

Image credits