Design flow targets multigigabit, serial interfaces

Version 15.0 of Cadence's PCB Expert design environment builds on the differential-pair-design support it released last year. The design flow supports multigigabit, serial-interface design on pc boards. Applications in the networking and telecommunication markets require high-speed serial interfaces, and designers use differential pairs to avoid the signal-integrity problems that these applications encounter. Differential signaling removes the need for complex source terminations and lets you drive high-speed signals over large distances. Differential pairs also require low voltage swings, have high noise immunity, and have low EMI. Version 15.0 lets you create, constrain, simulate, and implement differential signals as a concurrent process. The release includes enhancements in SpecctraQuest, SI Expert, Allegro, and Specctra autorouter.

You can define a set of rules within the Constraint Manager that enable constraint-driven layout in Allegro for differential pairs. You can also treat differential pairs as a single entity within Allegro and interactively route them with a display that shows information on phase or delay control and options to use various via patterns. You can also edit differential signals or groups of signals using interactive push/shove routing and maintain full electrical rule and constraint compliance. To accommodate high-speed system-on-chip devices, engineers now can also make complex measurements, such as common-mode offset measurements, from die pads inside the IC package to understand the influence of the package on the performance of the differential pair.

Prices for the PCB Design Expert start at $25,200 for a one-year license, including the Concept HDL Expert or Capture CIS schematic, constraint and topology management, library management, Allegro Expert interactive pc-board layout, and the Specctra Expert autorouter. The package operates on Solaris, HP-UX, IBM-AIX, Windows NT, and Windows 2000 platforms.

Cadence, 1-408-943-1234, www.cadence.com.