December 2010 Issue

Happy Holidays

Letter from the Editor

Dear Friend,

Christmas is a week away and no matter how you celebrate the holidays I wish you all a safe and happy holiday season!

Best Regards,

Timothy Coyle, President, Signal Consulting Group LLC

Signal Integrity Class Wrap Up

Signal Consulting Group Updates

I held the first SI Rock Star Class a couple of weeks ago in Santa Clara and with the new format and material I thought it worked out great. Here are a couple of mental notes I took for myself for the next class:

More lab time with software is better than more lecture time to reinforce concepts

3 days covers a lot of information (maybe too much)

Students interest = how closely it relates to their work/products/company

I originally struggled with a 3 or 2 day class but discussing with this class I think I will cut it down to 2 days. One reason is it is very difficult to get 3 full days off of work. The other reason is that after 3 days you cover so much information it can be difficult to stay focused. I think it will be better to drop some lecture material and add more labs to teach concepts.

All and all the class went well and I'm looking for suggestiosn on places to hold the class in 2011 so if you're interested let me know!

Learn More about Our SI Class »

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Models and Metrics

SharkSim News

Our new Signal Integrity tool for PCB designs called SharkSim PCB is out in beta now and I'm still putting together the copy and marketing materials for the official launch. But thinking about it from my point of view where I use this tool to do my consulting work it's really about models and metrics. Every SI tool now has a GUI front end and automated wizards but I found that I always spent time validating models (ie IBIS) and then lots of time post procssing the data into meaningful results (metrics). Basically, why simulate if you don't validate your models and don't have a metric to say whether your result is pass or fail?

You're going to see a lot of Signal Integrity theory and concepts highlighted in the New Year in various articles/tutorials/webinars/etc using SharkSim PCB as the simulation tool (another reason why I developed this tool) so it should be a fun and insightful year!

SharkSim Overview »

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New Format in the New Year

Training & Events

Over the last almost two years I have held numerous live webinars and have also put up the archived material for later viewing. The trend I see now is that most people for various reasons end up watching the archived webinar. So in the New Year I am going to experiment more with pre-recorded webinars and online videos and see if that works better for everyone. I do have a discussion forum that isn't used much but could direct viewers there afterwards to ask questions and discuss with the design community. So stay tuned for some new material in a new format!

For those of you that missed the PCB Impedance Stackup webinar or some of our other webinars this past year you can view the archived webinars online.

View Archived Webinars »

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