PCIe design complexity continues rising as the standard for intrasystem communication evolves. An urgent need for more system bandwidth drives PCIe interconnects to multi-lane, multi-link, multi-level signaling. Classical PCIe design workflows leave designers with most of the responsibility for getting the requisite… Read More
PCB designers can perform pre-route simulations, follow layout and routing rules, hope for the best from their prototype fab, and yet design errors cause respins which delays the project schedule. Just because post-route analysis is time consuming doesn’t mean that it should be avoided. Serial links are found in many PCB designs,… Read More
At the DesignCon 2023 event this year there was a presentation by Micron all about DDR5 design challenges like the need for a Decision Feedback Equalizer (DFE) inside the DRAM. Siemens EDA and Micron teamed up to write a detailed 25 page white paper on the topic, and I was able to glean the top points for this much shorter blog. The DDR5… Read More
SemiWiki readers from a digital IC background might find it surprising that post-PCB route analysis for high speed serial links isn’t a routine and fully automated part of the board design process. For us, the difference between pre- and post-route verification is running a slightly more accurate extraction and adding SI modelling,… Read More
