Testimonials

Zeiss Group selects Pulsonix as their global EDA solution

Founded as a workshop for precision mechanics and optics in the German city of Jena in 1846; Zeiss is today a global leader in optical and opto-electronics with approximately 31,000 employees in the Group. Zeiss has offices in over 30 countries and is represented in more than 100 countries world-wide, with production centres in Europe, North America, Central America and Asia. The company’s headquarters are now located in the South West of Germany in Oberkochen. It still has its original founding offices in Jena where significant development and production occurs.

The Zeiss Group state: “Our most important task, as we see it, is to enable science and technology to go beyond what man can see. ‘We make it visible’ – our corporate slogan and our promise to our customers to open doors that were previously sealed. We are market leaders in the majority of our fields and offer an extraordinary spectrum of leading-edge solutions and products”.

Zeiss Group Business Activities

Zeiss Group offers a wide range of products and solutions in its primary markets; Medical and Research Solutions, Industrial Solutions and Lifestyle Products. Neurosurgery, Microscopy, Ophthalmology. Ear, Nose and Throat surgery business units are responsible for Medical and Research Solutions. Lithographic Systems and Process Control Systems, and Industrial Metrology deal with Industrial Solutions. Camera Lenses, Sport Optics, Planetariums and Ophthalmic Optics are the makers of lifestyle products.

PCB Design Technology at Zeiss

The company’s enormous product range covers all types of designs and requires a wide range of equipment from small simple sensor boards to high-speed designs with 18 layer boards. High-density designs incorporate blind and buried vias. Special technologies and materials for thermal management are used, if necessary. Many boards feature impedance control. In summary, most of the available advanced technologies are used at Zeiss.

Previous EDA software

The Zeiss Group previously used Racal-Redac / Zuken’s Visula tool. When the old Visula Schematic tool was discontinued in the mid-1990s and superseded with the ViewDraw / DxDesigner product, Zeiss found that using tools from different vendors with different user interfaces was problematic and communication between the tools was very limited. Although Visula was a relatively powerful package for its time, its graphic interface and usability was not easy on a day to day basis or for new users. For example, changing technology values in a design was difficult. SPICE simulation with the DxDesigner / DxAnalog tool was not up-to-date enough and difficult to use. The CR5000 product from Zuken was rejected because of its complexity for users.

After extensive testing of the Pulsonix product range, Zeiss decided to swap EDA products corporately to Pulsonix. This decision was made for all Zeiss Group offices world-wide and has led to their central server in Germany servicing offices as far afield as the UK and China. Working closely with Westdev Ltd, the writers of Pulsonix, Zeiss were able to get new features specific to their working practices and processes incorporated into the product. This close working relationship and cooperation has been paramount to the success of the adoption of Pulsonix within Zeiss.

Pulsonix was chosen for key reasons

"Pulsonix is our new ECAD standard tool for Schematics, simulation and PCB design. It has been chosen for its modern easy-to-use interface and its perfect price/ performance ratio."
O. Hollinger, Carl Zeiss AG.

Pulsonix is our new ECAD standard tool for Schematics, simulation and PCB design. It has been chosen for its modern easy-to-use interface and its perfect price/performance ratio.

Olaf Hollinger
Senior Designer, Carl Zeiss AG