Hughes Circuits

HCI offers a complete design service including Schematic Capture, Part Library work, Layout, Documentation, Conversions, Reverse Engineering, and Revisions. 

We use the following tools:

A great circuit design deserves a great layout. Our designers pride themselves on making great layouts, error free and on schedule. It takes experience, talent, hard work, and attention to detail to make high quality layouts. These attributes are the core focus of our design group.

Experience

Our designers average over 20 years of PCB layout experience. But unlike many designers, the experience isn’t in a few narrow fields, but broadly over all industries and board types. Also our design group is continually learning from our fabrication and assembly operation, which provide real-time feedback on design for manufacturing. This integration proves invaluable and affords learning opportunities unmatched by independent design service bureaus. This experience nearly eliminates the possibility of a job going on hold for design rule violations at board fabrication or assembly. Since Hughes Circuits produces some of the most complex printed circuit boards in the industry, our designers are exposed daily to the latest emerging technologies. In the last 12 months our designers have completed more than 125 unique designs. That’s experience.

All designers at Hughes Circuits are IPC Certified Interconnect Designers (CID)

Talent

PCB layout is a complex combination of art and science. The most artfully crafted layout is nothing unless the circuit works. Our designers are well versed in the science of EMI, crosstalk, reflections, bypass and decoupling methodologies, minimizing inductance and minimizing loop area, and complex fan-out methods. We create beautiful art that works the first time. An additional benefit; designs are typically done in much less time than in-house design teams since our talent is strictly focused on fast, high quality PCB layout, nothing else.

Hard Work

Sometimes priorities shift unexpectedly or schedules become extremely tight. Our design group is dedicated to assisting our customers meet demanding design schedules with a focus on cycle time reduction. Efficiency is key to reducing cycle time, and our design group is continually training and sharing best practices to ensure the highest level of efficiency. We also invest in the latest software and hardware to ensure that we take advantage of the markets best technologies.

Attention to detail

Quality is in the numbers. There are an infinite number of ways to make errors in PCB layout. Foot print errors, dimensional errors, mechanical errors, design rule errors, or data errors are just a few of the possibilities. It requires incredible attention to detail, care, and a proven system to avoid making mistakes. Most of our designs are completely hand routed to minimize line lengths and ensure high quality circuit performance and avoid signal integrity issues. Our designers have a passion for quality, but we don’t stop there.

Each job received at Hughes undergoes a structured quality review process at key operations to ensure all designs are defect free. All designs receive a second set of eyes to ensure nothing has been overlooked or misinterpreted. In fact, we provide a performance guarantee that your design will be free from defects.* We don’t just stake our reputation on our quality, we stake our paycheck.

Collaboration

We can accommodate any level of collaboration. Whether the engineer would like to be next to the designer at every step of the way or only for final review, our offices are open for meetings at any time. However, most customers find that our real-time collaboration software is invaluable. At any stage of design we can hold teleconferences where the designer and engineer can review the design real-time and both parties can manipulate our design software from any remote location. If there is a critical placement that has not been documented the engineer can remotely take control of our software and move the part to precisely the location they’d like it, without leaving the comfort of their office. This might single handily be one of the greatest improvements in outside PCB design in the last decade. This collaboration results in a greatly reduced design review cycle and increased efficiency for both the designer and the engineer.