New Sigrity 3D Workbench Used in Designing and Optimizing Next Generation High-Speed Connectors

2018 is going to be remembered as the year of 3D for Sigrity.  As part of Cadence’s Sigrity2018 release, we introduced the new Sigrity 3D Workbench technology included as part of the Sigrity PowerSI^® 3D EM Extraction Option (3DEM).  This technology enables our users to 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.  When integrated into the Cadence Allegro^®environment, this allows PCB design teams to optimize the high-speed interconnect of PCBs, IC packages, and connectors in the Sigrity tool and automatically implement the optimized PCB interconnect in Allegro without the need to redraw, providing a much more efficient and less error-prone solution compared to alternatives using third-party tools.

Our new 3D Workbench technology was highlighted in a customer presentation that won the Outstanding Presentation Award in the IC Packaging and PCB Design track at this year’s CDNLive Taiwan user conference, which featured over 40 presentations from six different technical tracks and had over 1000 attendees. The presentation, Design and Optimization for the Next Generation High Speed Connector, from Foxconn Industrial Internet focuses on optimizing the performance of a main PCB and an SFF-8654 high-speed connector for PCI-e Gen4 or SAS Gen4 applications using the new 3D Workbench technology.

The Foxconn Industrial Internet presentation opens with a simulation methodology to optimize the SFF-8654 high-speed connector with the main PCB board.  They next discuss frequency domain S-parameter analysis and compare simulation flows, the number of adaptive meshing elements and iterations, and S-parameter accuracy between Sigrity 3D Workbench and a 3^rd Party 3D Tool showing practically identical results.  After confirming the performance and accuracy of 3D Workbench, S-parameter and FEXT & NEXT simulations are then run in 3D Workbench for their different cases and conditions.  Finally, time domain TDR analysis and simulations are performed to complete the optimization process giving an overall connector TDR differential impedance meeting the 85W ± 10% requirement.

To review and download Foxconn Industrial Internet’s presentation, click the image below.

Thanks to Foxconn Industrial Internet for their outstanding presentation at this year’s CDNLive Taiwan and to all the other CDNLive contributors.  Also, check out our What’s New in Sigrity web page to see the latest features and updates in our new Sigrity 2018 release. 

Have a great 3D year with Sigrity!

Team Sigrity