Date: 04/02/2009

Power Integrity analysis for low power multiple voltage PCB design

Mentor Graphics new HyperLynx PI (power integrity) tool enables easy-to-learn-and-use setup and accurate analysis of complex power plane structures in complex multiple voltage low power designs.

The lower power design demands high performance ICs using multiple voltage levels - some very low. The low voltage design issue of defining the power and ground split-planes to avoid excessive current densities and DC voltage drop is addressed through this tool. The HyperLynx PI product provides both pre- and post-layout analysis of irregular power and ground plane structures incorporating the exact IC pin locations and models. The results of the analysis can be both visual and textual, enabling the designer to quickly identify and resolve power and/or ground plane structure problems.

The second issue is the integrity, or absence of noise of the delivered power. The designer needs to determine the number and location of decoupling capacitors and the goal is to save component cost and board area by avoiding over-conservative (excessive) use of bypass capacitors. The designer may also want to experiment with the PCB fabrication materials and stack-up to determine the best electrical and cost solution. The HyperLynx PI product provides accurate analysis of the power integrity, enabling the designer to determine the best number, placement and values of the de-coupling capacitors. With this information, the designer can perform correct-by-design layout of the power structures and decoupling-capacitor placements for single-pass power integrity design.
The HyperLynx PI product is integrated with the HyperLynx SI (signal integrity) product suite to provide a comprehensive analysis and verification solution for today's products. The HyperLynx SI product includes signal integrity and delay analysis functionality for classical parallel (synchronous), advanced-memory (DDR, DDR2, DDR3 - source-synchronous), and SERDES serial (asynchronous) bus interconnects.

Availability:
1. The HyperLynx PI product is available now to select customers
2. General release targeted for first quarter 2009
Price: pricing starting at $35K

For more details visit the site: www.mentor.com