ANSYS Debuts Electromagnetic Simulation Suite For PCB Design

By DE Editors

ANSYS  has released an update to its SIwave electromagnetic (EM) simulation suite for the design of high-speed printed circuit boards (PCB) and integrated circuit (IC) packages, which is now available via three targeted products: SIwave-DC, SIwave-PI, and SIwave.

According to the company, the new SIwave suite delivers a complete signal integrity analysis solution in a single user interface. SIwave-DC targets the DC analysis of low-voltage, high-current PCB and IC packages, enabling the assessment of end-to-end voltage margins for reliable power delivery. SIwave-PI includes all SIwave-DC features and adds alternating current (AC) analysis to accurately model power delivery networks and noise propagation on PCBs.  SIwave combines all SIwave-DC and SIwave-PI functionality, and adds a time-domain circuit simulation engine for end-to-end signal integrity design and compliance.

“It’s becoming increasingly important for our customers to be able to quickly recognize potential pre- and post-layout power and signal integrity problems for today’s high-speed digital designs,” said Steven Pytel, product manager at ANSYS. “In consultation with our customers,  we identified demand for targeted analysis for DC, power integrity, and full systems. The new SIwave technology and workflow provides a complete set of analysis software based on the highest fidelity electromagnetic numerical analyses to address all aspects of PCB and IC package design.”

SIwave-DC allows users to perform pre- and post-layout DC voltage drop,  DC current density and DC power density analyses. According to the company, this will ensure that power distribution networks (PDNs) can source the proper power to integrated circuits by checking that the PDN has the proper bump, ball and pin sizes as well as proper copper weighting to minimize losses and identify areas of excess current resulting in thermal hot spots to reduce risk of field failure.

Using genetic algorithms, SIwave-PI allows the specification of various constraints (capacitor price, total number of capacitors, desired network impedance, etc.) for consideration in its cost function. Accurate frequency-dependent S-parameter capacitor models are utilized during simulation.

With SIwave, signal integrity engineers can import electrical CAD geometry, extract GHz-accurate interconnect models for the IC, package and PCB, include transistor level models of drivers and receivers, and run signal sign off analysis, impedance matching and power delivery system optimization. This solution includes common Input/Output Buffer Information Specification (IBIS) analyses such as “Power-Aware IBIS”  and “IBIS-AMI” to provide virtual compliance to design engineers.  

For more information, visit ANSYS.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.