PCB Tech - Necessity of PCB simulation

PCB simulation is no longer a choice but an inevitable way for most of today's design. EDA industry is a key factor to promote the rapid development of electronic industry. Its market scale is as high as US $1 trillion. Most of its sales are monopolized by several large companies (measured by the standards of EDA market). The sold tools mainly focus on cutting-edge simulation and integrated circuit chip (ASIC, SOC, etc.).

However, most electronic design engineers only design printed circuit boards, not integrated circuits. The sales volume of EDA tool software for PCB circuit board design accounts for only a small part of the total EDA sales. The reason for this contrast is that many circuit board design engineers do not accept simulation tools, although IC engineers regard simulation as a basic step in the design process. This paper analyzes the reasons for this difference, and introduces the reasons for the rapid development of EDA tools and the fields that engineers should pay attention to.

Reasons for avoiding circuit board design simulation

There are three main reasons why simulation is not popularized in circuit board design: complex use, lack of simulation model and high cost. First of all, so far, the use of PCB simulation software is still quite complex, so the concept of "simulation is too complex" has been formed among circuit board design engineers. Secondly, many circuit simulation models can not be found, so it is almost impossible to simulate a complete circuit. For example, if there are 200 components on a PCB, 193 of which can be simulated, while the remaining 7 key components cannot be simulated, then what's the point of imitation? More importantly, simulation software is usually expensive.