June 2011 Issue

Summer Work

Letter from the Editor

Dear Friend,

As promised I've started our Signal Integrity Webinar Series again and have a recorded webinar available on clock termination. Some future topics are going to be S-Parameters and IBIS-AMI both very interesting topics!

I'm also doing a short survey on SI tools so take a minute to fill it out and you could win a free Power Integrity book!

I also have an article on microstrip transmission lines, SharkSim updates, and more!

Best Regards,

Timothy Coyle, President, Signal Consulting Group LLC

SI Tool Research Survey

Signal Consulting Group Updates

I've been discussing Signal Integrity tools and methodology with clients lately so I put together a short survey to get a better idea of what people are working on and how they are doing it. Everyone who takes the survey will be entered into a drawing to win a free copy of "Power Integrity for I/O Interfaces" by Prentice Hall (who was nice enough to give me the free review book). The drawing will be done by the end of June so make sure you take the survey before then!

back to top

June Update Release

SharkSim News

I'm planning for the June Q2 2011 update for SharkSim Developer and SharkSim PCB so here's a quick highlight of what's coming:

For SharkSim Developer we've added initial support for IBIS-AMI models in the IBIS editor viewer and adding AMI calls in the IBIS model generation flow. There are also some bug/enhancement fixes for using Series Switch IBIS models with HSPICE.

For SharkSim PCB we're still in the middle of adding new features for the upcoming release which isn't a good idea so close to release date! But we are coming up with some great features (like an IBIS model browser with database) that we're trying to squeeze them in! Lot's of behind the scense fixes and updates for PCB version that will make it run faster and be more stable. We also added support for S-Parameters (for Pro version) and we may be adding IBIS-AMI support (with HSPICE) in an upcoming beta so lots to look forward to!

Download a 30 day demo for SharkSim PCB and find out how easy Signal Integrity design can be!

Download SharkSim PCB »

back to top

Rogers Material Impedance Tool

Tool Tips

There are a lot of transmission line calculator tools out there ranging from open source to full blown commercial 3D field solvers. But some of the more interesting tools I see are coming from the PCB material vendors like Rogers. They recently released a free transmission line tool called MWI-2010 that uses analytical equations to calculate impedance and provides loss profiles for their materails. I think one advantage of the vendor tool is that you can be pretty sure their material loss values are spot on.

back to top

Stay Updated

Design Community

I've got the LinkedIN group up and running and I try to keep this group updated fairly regularly on what we're working on as well as industry updates so check it out today!

back to top

Microstrip TLines

High Speed Digital Design

I've got a new article this month on microstrip transmission line models that covers the fundamentals. This is a short article that gives an easy to use impedance calculation and some insight into the different microstrip transmission lines that can be used.

Microstrip Transmission Line Article »

back to top

Clock Termination Webinar

Training & Events

I put up a recently recorded webinar on clock termination for preserving signal quality. This covers the fundamentals of termination types in PCB design: series, parallel, thevenin, and AC. For thos of you that wanted the slides I also posted thos as well.This is an enhanced video with some extra voice over and editing so I hope you like it!

View Presentation »

back to top