ECU PCB Design
Automotive ECUs can benefit from size and weight reduction when PCBs designed with Cadence Allegro® tools are miniaturized with fine line multi-layer substrates, blind and buried vias, microvias, substrate embedded passive and active components, and rigid-flex substrates that can be folded and fitted into automotive housings that target specific voids and spaces within the car. Tight Allegro integration with mechanical CAD (MCAD) tools ensures productive ECU co-design of housings and PCBs.
Cadence PSpice® Advanced Analysis Option prevents board failures by determining which components are over-stressed using Smoke analysis or by observing component yields using Monte Carlo analysis.
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ECU SiP Design
Electronic control units (ECUs) for advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) applications often need multiple sensors to act as the eyes and ears of the car. The integration of these sensors with local compute for sensor fusion is a similar challenge to the integration of multiple inertial sensor die for the smartphone market. Here, SiPs provide a solution that minimizes space, weight, power, and volume costs. The small form factors and profiles of SiP solutions enable OEMs to more discreetly integrate smart sensors into the exterior surfaces of the car.
These same benefits can be achieved with any automotive ECU. The bill of materials (BoM), size, weight, and power of the ECU can all be reduced by integrating multiple bare dies and passives directly into the SiP.
Cadence SiP Layout XL is the physical design solution for advanced SiP packages, covering side-by-side die, stacked die, and combinations of the two. It supports design across a wide range of single- and multi-die packaging technologies, including laminate build-up substrates, interposers, and wafer-level fan-out packages. Its 3D-aware design and 3D visualization combines with comprehensive DFM/DFA checking to ensure accurate and efficient implementation of ECU modules and other automotive packaging applications. LEARN MORE
Benefits:
- Comprehensive 3D checking and visualization for error-free, complex, multi-tier wirebond, flipchip, and through-silicon-via configurations
- Constraint-driven layout with auto-interactive routing technologies for fast, accurate implementation of high-density SIP interconnects
- Design tool compatibility with OSAT providers for seamless bi-directional exchange of design data
System Analysis
ECU RF Design and Analysis
Integrated RF design for radar sensors, car radio, antenna modules, and V2X ECUs can be achieved in PCB, SiP, and SoC fabrics using RF variants of Cadence design tools, with system verification achieved through Allegro Sigrity™ extraction and with Spectre® RF simulation.
Our RF/microwave design tools such as the Cadence AWR Design Environment®, AWR® Microwave Office®, and AWR Visual System Simulator™ (VSS) software address electrical/physical co-design through RF-aware device models and electromagnetic (EM) analysis along with specialized circuit simulation technology.
Benefits:
- Allegro tools for PCB antenna design and other RF copper shape editing, placement, and routing, including a library of more than 200 RF symbols
- Cadence SiP Layout XL for embedding inductors / passives in the SiP substrate
- Cadence Virtuoso® tools for closely coupled RF circuit design and RF layout for SoCs
- Spectre RF for RF system simulation, utilizing SoC/SiP inductor and packaging S-parameter models extracted with Allegro Sigrity tools
ECU Signal, Power, and Thermal Integrity Analysis
Automotive ECUs created with PCB, SiP, and SoC fabrics must accommodate harsh thermal and electromagnetic operating conditions within a car. With inter- and intra-ECU data rates also rising dramatically, this demands careful signal, power, and thermal integrity analysis. Gigahertz communications between memory and CPU in SiP and PCB designs within an ECU, or network communication between ECUs, all benefit from signal integrity (SI) analysis with the Allegro Sigrity SI Solution, where signal, power, and ground can be coupled and simulated together.
The full-wave extraction of SiP package, PCB, and connector physical contexts with the Cadence Sigrity PowerSI® 3D EM Extraction Option allows detailed analysis of the losses, reflections, ringing, and crosstalk that can impact eye openings in these high-speed ECU communication pathways.
Thermal analysis of PCBs and SiPs within the ECU can be achieved with the Cadence Sigrity PowerDC™ tool, which identifies areas of excess current density and thermal hotspots to reduce risk of field failure. Near-field emissions from ECU boards are also available from Sigrity power-aware SI analysis, as part of electro-magnetic compliance (EMC) testing.
Benefits:
- Sigrity solutions target complete power-delivery system analyses across chips, packages, and boards within an ECU
- Sigrity solutions target SI analysis for ECUs, including simultaneous switching noise (SSN) analysis of high-speed signal transmissions
- Constraint-driven design methodology ensures electrical design intent is followed and performance verified with power-aware SI analysis technology
Cadence Clarity™ 3D Solver is a 3D electromagnetic (EM) simulation tool for designing critical interconnects for PCBs, IC packages, and system on IC (SoIC) designs.
The Cadence Celsius™ Thermal Solver is the industry’s first complete electrical-thermal co-simulation solution for the full hierarchy of electronic systems from ICs to physical enclosures.
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