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Mentor extends PCB software to analyse power flow

Power integrity analysed in PCB package

Mentor Graphics has added a power integrity analysis tool, HyperLynx, PI to its PCB-design software. On complex PCBs with low voltages and high currents, designers can ensure that – under operating conditions – sufficient clean power reaches every IC on a board. The package analyses dc power drop and power noise, assisting with the design of power and ground plane structures and de-coupling capacitor numbers, as well as their optimum placements. As well as achieving correct operation, over-conservative design is reduced, Mentor says, a practice that engineers have had to adopt due to limited feedback from existing tools. At lower voltages, DC power and noise margins are very small, requiring multiple power delivery structures on a PCB and the need for that power to be exceptionally clean. The first issue is defining the power and ground split-planes to avoid excessive current densities (picture 1) and DC voltage drop.

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, as can the subsequent power integrity or the AC power plane analysis. Graphics display information such as current density where excessive currents are constrained to pass through a conductor “neck” resulting in voltage drop, and resistive heating (picture 2). From the AC analysis the designer can see noise propagation predictions; the package identifies power-distribution network impedances across all frequencies of interest in the design.
You can use the new package as an addition to all PCB-design software that uses industry standard interface formats, and it is closely integrated with Mentor’s own Expedition Enterprise, PADS and Board Station design flows, as well as the HyperLynx SI (signal integrity) product.