EMF simulator offers power rail extraction

Ansoft Corp. has released a new version of its SIwave full-wave EMF simulator optimized for signal integrity, power integrity and EMI analysis of high-speed PCBs and complex IC packages.

The SIwave v3.5 features a finite-element-based DC solver optimized for extraction of power rail geometry in complex low-voltage/high-current PCB and package designs. Engineers can view voltage and current distributions in all relevant geometry including vias and bond wires. Moreover, users have access to voltage drop and current flow information through all layout elements (vias, bond wires, sources, resistors and inductors) in tabular format, which allows engineers to quickly identify design rule violations.

SIwave v3.5, leveraging Ansoft's adaptive mesh refinement technology, also allows users to find layout problems quickly and warns of possible bond wire and via electromigration damage prior to the fabrication of a prototype, said Ansoft.

SIwave accurately simulates the electromagnetic behavior of complex PCBs and IC packages including multiple, arbitrarily shaped power and ground layers and any number of vias and signal traces, said Ansoft. The resulting full-wave S-,Y- or Z-parameters or GHz-bandwidth circuit model is used in concert with time- and frequency-domain analyses within Nexxim and DesignerSI or third-party Spice-compatible circuit tools.

Ansoft said engineers use SIwave to extract a model for the complex interactions among traces on the board, the coupled impedances within the IC package and between package pins and the PCB. That model can then be used in a top-level circuit simulation to characterize the nonlinear behavior of an IC, including the package and board parasitics. This chip-package-board co-simulation is critical for reliable integrated electronics system performance, said Ansoft.

SIwave v3.5 is available on the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4.

- Gina Roos
eeProductCenter