Signal Integrity Analysis
In the context of PCB design, signal integrity (SI) and power integrity (PI) analysis is a set of techniques that ensure a PCB, or system of PCBs, will perform electrically.
Clock speeds and data rates are increasing and many systems require high-speed interfaces such as DDR3 or DDR4 memory channels and SERDES links like PCIe, JESD402B, SATA, and 12G-SDI. At multi-GHz frequencies, layout guidelines, rules of thumb and basic electrical rules checks are not sufficient to avoid SI issues which can cause degraded performance, functional defects and failure to achieve standards compliance.
Although this is a growing issue, many companies find it difficult to develop and maintain an in-house SI analysis capability. In these cases SI analysis is not required frequently enough to justify additional EDA licenses, training courses and on-the-job learning and practice. SI skills are in short supply.
Our Solution
At ALS we operate a specialist signal and power integrity analysis service. We own and maintain a full suite of advanced simulation point tools including 3D full-wave extraction and EM solvers which are used constantly on customer projects.
As well as performing SI analysis as part of our PCB design flow, we can provide an analysis service for PCB layouts designed by your team.
Whether your designs originate from Cadence, Altium, Mentor or any other system, they can be simulated at ALS.
Even if you only have manufacturing artwork available (ODB++, Gerber, etc.) the design can be imported into our signal integrity tool-flow for analysis.
Simulations are run on our leading-edge SI platforms to give you the confidence that your end product will perform as expected.
Multiple tools are employed, allowing a wide range of analysis tasks to be undertaken including 3D EM full-wave extraction, network analysis, channel analysis, AC power analysis and DC power analysis. Our SI analysis takes into account fluctuations on power and ground rails.
On completion, we provide a detailed SI report and recommendations. If we find issues during the analysis process, we provide instant feedback and advice so the problems can be quickly resolved.
If you have a project that could benefit from our SI analysis then we would be happy to discuss it. Please don’t hesitate to contact us
For more information, please click on the image below to visit our signal integrity analysis website.
