PCB Tech - High-end PCB system design challenges

PCB design solutions market and technology leader Mentor Graphics (Mentor Graphics) announced the launch of HyperLynx® PI (power integrity) products to meet the needs of high-end designers in the industry for high-performance electronic products. HyperLynx PI products not only provide simple and easy-to-learn, convenient operation, and accurate analysis, allowing team members to design a feasible power supply system; at the same time, it shortens the design cycle, reduces prototype generation and repetitive manufacturing, and reduces product costs accordingly.

With the emergence of various high-performance/high-density/high-pin-count integrated circuits today, the design of transmission systems increasingly requires close cooperation between engineers and layout designers to ensure that they can be integrated into the IC through numerous PCB power and ground structures. Provide pure and sufficient power. In conjunction with the previously launched HyperLynx signal integrity (SI) analysis and confirmation of product components, Mentor Graphics currently provides users with high-performance electronic product designs that are the most comprehensive and practical solutions in the industry.

"With very high-end users, driven by the multiple voltage levels and power requirements of high-performance integrated circuits, it is necessary to design more than 30 sets of power supply structures in a single PCB." Henry Potts, vice president and general manager of the system design division of Mentor Graphics Express. "The design of the above structure requires fast and accurate DC Power Drop and Power Noise analysis. It has accurate analysis information, power and ground layer structure and de-coupling capacitor number (de-coupling capacitor number). ) And location can be determined to avoid overly conservative design and high product cost."

In the field of electronic products today, power integrity design is an unavoidable problem. Not only must the efficiency be maximized, but also the increased cost of over-design cannot be afforded. With the product's noise tolerance, impedance target, and split plane issues, the power distribution system (PDN) of each product is customized. When designing power transmission systems, HyperLynx PI can help engineers formulate more cost-effective design principles, and provide answers to various important "hypothetical" design questions that may occur early in the design cycle, avoiding expensive production and then testing ( build-it and test-it) rational routine work. The PCB design process used by Mentor Graphics in HyperLynx PI products provides users with the best combination of accuracy, ease of operation, and transparency and integrity. With these properties, engineers can open the market in the fastest way with the most cost-effective, best-performing products, while avoiding expensive and time-consuming prototyping and redesigns.

The current trend of products that continue to develop towards low power consumption has prompted high-performance ICs to adopt multiple voltage levels-some are very low. Due to the lower voltage, the DC power and noise margin are very small. This requires the establishment of many power supply structures on the PCB, as well as a very pure power supply. The first task is to define the power and ground separation layer to avoid excessive current density and DC voltage drop. HyperLynx PI products can provide pre- and post-analysis of abnormal power ground layer structure including actual IC pins and models. The analysis results are divided into two categories: video and text, allowing designers to quickly determine and solve power and/or ground plane structure problems.

The second is to provide power integrity or noise-free power. The designer needs the number and location of decoupling capacitors, the purpose of which is to avoid over-conservative (or excessive) use of bypass capacitors to save component costs and circuit board area. The designer Kenneng also hopes that the PCB manufacturing materials and stack-up will conduct many experiments to find the most cost-effective power solution. HyperLynx PI products provide accurate power integrity analysis, allowing designers to determine the optimal number, location and value of decoupling capacitors. With the above information, designers can achieve a "correct-by-design" (correct-by-design) power supply structure layout, and place decoupling capacitors to achieve a single-pass power supply integrity Sexual design.