Saber HarnessFor Complete Electrical and Mechanical Design from Concept to ManufacturingData SheetOverviewWire harness design is one of the most expensive parts in many automotive and aerospace electrical systems.The harness forms the backbone of the entire electrical system interconnect allowing efficient and cost-effective operation. With it's myriad complexities and interdependencies on all connected sub-systems, the harness design process poses significant technical and logistical challenges to make it function reliably.SaberHarness™ enables design teams to deal with these challenges by providing an integrated process for electrical system design from concept to manufacturing. SaberHarness minimizes data entry, manages complex, system-wide design variants, enables concurrent engineering, maintains data integrity, and allows efficient exchange with 3D CAD systems.SaberHarness allows designers to create schematic drawings and connectivity diagrams, export component and wire data, import geometry information from MCAD tools, simulate electrical functions, create bundles with connector positions and generate data for manufacturing - all within one easy-to-use tool.BenefitsI Enables complete analysis of electrical systems before layout and manufacturing to avoid system failure later in productionI Provides an integrated data flow for electrical system design from concept to manufacturingI Minimizes data entry and manual checking tasks, automates data pro-cessing steps while maintaining data integrity, and integrates with popular3D CAD tools (Catia V5, UGS, ProE)I Supports team and concurrent engineering working methods, saving valuable design time and maintaining data integrityI Provides an easy-to-use design editorHarness Design Challenges Managing harness designs is a major challenge. Electrical designs are becoming more complex and can have a multitude of possible variations. For example, today'sautomotive braking system standards areABS and ESP (electronic stability program- a more sophisticated variant of ABS); butsoon brake-by-wire systems, already in usein aircraft, will add a layer of complexityand have even more complex wiringrequirements.Therefore, design changes must be man-aged throughout the process and usersmust exchange data between varyingdesign and analysis tools.The size ofthese tasks requires the use of concurrentengineering methods, as the design mustbe continually revised and documented.Finally, designers have the added pressureof needing to reduce the cost, weight andconnector size of the design while enhancingits safety and robustness.Saber Harness SolutionSaber Harness provides an integrateddata flow for electrical system design fromconcept to manufacturing. Saber Harnessis a single, intuitive tool for developing bothwire and bundle diagrams, allowing electricalengineers and harness designers tobecome familiar with the data while work-ing with a consistent data source and data-base. With the use of a single database,data translation errors further downstreamin the design are eliminated. Data integrityis maintained even when exchanging databetween Saber Harness and 3D CADtools such as Catia V5, ProE, and UGS.After the wires and bundles have beenrouted in the 3D design, wire length andsplices position are transferred back toSaber Harness to retain the information inthe database.Schematics and Connectivity Diagrams SaberHarness can use schematics that come in from the electrical engineering departments and contain subsystems and architectural concepts of the complete elec-trical design. The user can either elaborate those drafts or create the connectivity diagram from scratch and use the parts gallery to find the needed components. Or, the user may create custom components with the symbol editor.After placing the components, wire connec-tions are made. SaberHarness provides extensive wire information including diameter, color, and part number to facilitate selecting the needed wire for manufacturing. Wire information can also be imported from the designer's corporate database into SaberHarness.Inline connectors are inserted into the design to separate the different harnesses. The connectors are managed by the Connector Manager so that the user can quickly find the inlines and to ensure that no cavity is incorrectly occupied. Based on user-defined rules, the Automatic Parts Selector determines the required passive components for each connector shell and all the cavities. Design Rule Check finds problems such as disconnected wires and mismatching diameters of wires and termi-nals. SaberHarness lets the designer quicklyand efficiently enter the correct data andfind conflicts in the design.Concurrent EngineeringLarger designs are usually split into multiple"sheets," each worked on by a differentengineer. Most of the sheets share commondata such as power supply and ground;some sheets share components like controlunits and fuse boxes. If individual engineerswork on the different sheets, data integrityis jeopardized. But Saber Harness takescare of this problem. A check-in/check-outmechanism and conflict resolution capabilityprohibits multiple users from concurrentmanipulation of shared wires andshared/split objects, eliminating integrityissues.InterfacesOnce all data on the components, wiresand connectivity is stored in the database,it's a simple "export to file" function thatmakes this data available to the 3D CADtool. The CAD designer now positions thecomponents and routes the wires in the 3Dmodel. This added geometrical data can beimported into Saber Harness, so that allwires and bundle segments now have thecorrect length information. Many other toolsrequire unique formats to exchange data.Saber Harness' Table Manager lets theuser quickly generate tables in any ASCIIformat to meet these unique requirements.For example, the designer can generate alist of components, together with their coor-dinates, and put them onto the schematicor generate a bill of material and export it tovarious spread-sheet programs.Generated DrawingsOnly Saber Harness offers a variety of tightlyintegrated generated drawing tools. Onesuch tool is Saber Bundle. With the con-nectivity, harness and variant informationavailable in the database, Saber Bundlequickly creates bundles that make up thewire harness. The designer need only posi-tion the connector symbols and may definedesired bundle segment routings. If thegeometrical information from the CAD toolhas been imported into the database, thebundle segment information will have thecorrect length information.Saber Bundle MCAD projection featureuses 3D information about the positions ofthe bundle junction and connectors andmakes a 2D projection. The designer canselect the perspective, rotation, and scaleof the projection. For example, if thedesigner wants the engine bay connectorson one side of the sheet and the truck con-nectors on the opposite side, the 2D pro-jection will approximate those locations.2A Harness drawing:with the wire property editorThis eliminates the need to move dozens or hundreds of symbols manually.Saber Harness has other drawing tools for visualizing how different harnesses are connected and how power and ground are distributed.Those drawing tools include:I Bundle drawingsI Power distributionI Ground distributionI Harness connectivityThese unique drawing tools help the designer to speed up the documentation process and therefore save time for their design tasks.SimulationAnother big challenge in the wire harness design is electrical integrity. Together with Synopsys industry-standard, mixed-signal/mixed-technology simulator, Saber, Saber Harness can verify the har-ness meets the required specifications. For example, dc-analysis shows the voltage levels at the terminals, while transient simu-lation helps to determine the correct fuses,optimal dimensions of the fuses, cross-sec-tional areas of all wires, existence of sneakpaths, etc. Saber Harness performs themeasurements and calculations on thesimulation results to determine the electricalfunctionality and quality of the design. Onceanalyses are complete, Saber Harness pro-vides features such as back-annotation andprobes that visualize the simulated informa-tion in the design.A Next-generation ToolSaber Harness was developed with inputfrom wire-harness designers and electricalengineers to ensure that it addresses wireharness issues for real-world designs. Itsunique integration and adaptability enable itto fit into very complex design flows withoutcompromising the ease of use. It givesusers the ability to design and verify com-plex designs with minimal user input to savetime, labor and money while improving theoverall design.Platform SupportI Popular UnixI LinuxI Windows Platforms SupportedFor more information about Synopsysproducts, support services or train-ing, visit us on the web or at/saber, contactyour local sales representative.Saber Harness design process.700 East Middlefield Road, Mountain View, CA 94043 Synopsys and the Synopsys logo are registered trademarks of Synopsys, Inc. Saber is a registered trademark of American Airlines licensed to Synopsys, Inc.All other products or service names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. Printed in the U.S.A.©2005 Synopsys, Inc. 08/05.KF.WO.05-13488。
