The result is a single GUI that manages several underlying SI/PI simulation engines to allow quick interactive analysis as well as exhaustive batch-mode analysis. The new HyperLynx release merges signal- and power-integrity analysis, 3D-electromagnetic solving, and fast rule checking into a unified environment. With the latest rev of HyperLynx, signal integrity and power integrity co-exist in one easy-to-use environment that is plenty approachable even by engineers who don’t walk around constantly chanting about crosstalk and ground bounce. After all, if SI and PI were straightforward, easy-to-use, and fast, those guys would lose all of their mystique.īut Mentor insists that no mystique is required. You know those signal integrity experts that some teams have? The ones who spend long hours gazing knowingly into the vast abyss inside their eye diagrams, mumbling softly to themselves in cryptic tongues about “pre-emphasis” or “equalization”? Those guys need to defend their turf. After all, if it’s that fast and easy, it can’t be doing REAL work, now, can it? The company says the tool’s biggest obstacle, ironically, is that it’s easy to use and fast, and that makes some engineers worry. HyperLynx has been around a long time, actually. With the newest version of HyperLynx, Mentor Graphics is working to improve all that. This means the SI/PI challenge expands beyond tools – to teams and talent. Many other teams don’t even have that one expert, but really wish they did. Many teams have one special expert who is in charge of SI and PI for the project. Unfortunately, industrial-strength power- and signal-integrity analysis tools can be intimidating and complicated to use, and they can require enormous amounts of processing power to solve the complex equations involved. It is becoming rare for a design team to be successful with a leading-edge PCB without state-of-the art SI and PI simulation and analysis. New protocols and standards for high-speed interfaces like DDR4, multi-gigabit Ethernet, and PCI Express put even more strain on the design, and continually increasing operating speeds combined with decreased voltages up the ante yet again. And, with the compression and perforation of power planes, we can’t take power integrity (PI) for granted either.
With the pervasiveness of high-speed serial interfaces and other signals that put a premium on signal integrity (SI), most board designs can’t get away with simple-minded placement and routing anymore. These days, the metal on your PCB has to do a lot more than just connect a few dots.
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