3D System Design Solutions

Today’s system designs have many high-speed signals crossing multiple PCB boundaries, requiring effective signal integrity analysis to encompass signal and return paths to include the source and destination dies, packages, and PCBs, as well as the intervening interconnect including connectors, cables, sockets, and other mechanical structures. Traditional analysis techniques utilize a separate model for each piece of interconnect and cascade these models together in a circuit simulation tool, which can be an error-prone process due to the 3D nature of the transition from the PCB to the connector. In addition, since the 3D transition can make or break signal integrity, at very high speeds designers also want to optimize the transition from the connector to the PCB or the socket to the PCB.

The new Cadence^® Sigrity^™ 3D Workbench utility, included with the Sigrity PowerSI 3D EM Extraction Option (3DEM), extends design and analysis beyond the package and board to also include 3D mechanical structures such as connectors and cables, all of which can impact optimization of the high-speed interconnect. With 3D Workbench, users can now import mechanical structures, such as cables and connectors, and merge them with the PCB so critical 3D structures that cross from the board to the connector can be modeled and optimized as one structure. Updates to the PCB can be automatically back-annotated to the Cadence Allegro^® PCB Designer layout tool, saving hours of re-drawing and eliminating editing errors.

3D Workbench incorporates a 3D mechanical CAD GUI for creating, editing, and importing 3D solid models for 3D electromagnetic analysis. You can bring in design data from popular MCAD formats such as Acis, IGES, and STEP, as well as the Cadence Allegro and Sigrity formats. 3D components are easily created with parameterization and equation expressions to allow for modeling flexibility and simulation optimization. Boolean operation function is available to modify 3D components efficiently. 3D CAD geometry problems and misalignment errors can be quickly repaired with 3D Workbench’s model clean-up functions. The advanced adaptive mesh refinement algorithm allows you to automatically generate accurate meshes for small intricate 3D connectors to large complex electronic systems with enclosures.