-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueLevel Up Your Design Skills
This month, our contributors discuss the PCB design classes available at IPC APEX EXPO 2024. As they explain, these courses cover everything from the basics of design through avoiding over-constraining high-speed boards, and so much more!
Opportunities and Challenges
In this issue, our expert contributors discuss the many opportunities and challenges in the PCB design community, and what can be done to grow the numbers of PCB designers—and design instructors.
Embedded Design Techniques
Our expert contributors provide the knowledge this month that designers need to be aware of to make intelligent, educated decisions about embedded design. Many design and manufacturing hurdles can trip up designers who are new to this technology.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
Broadcom PCB Design: Miniaturization on the Cutting Edge
June 15, 2015 | Andy Shaughnessy, PCBDesign007Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
I recently attended the Orange County Designer's Council “Lunch and Learn” meeting, held at the Broadcom offices on the campus of the University of California, Irvine. Afterward, I sat down with Scott Davis, CID, the senior manager of PC board design at Broadcom, to discuss the company’s savvy PCB design department and their approach to PCB design.
Andy Shaughnessy: Scott, tell us a little about yourself and the design team you manage.
Scott Davis: I've been in the industry since 1996 when I actually joined a historic company, Praegitzer Industries. It was part of the Praegitzer design group that started the numerous acquisitions and transfers throughout the history of Tyco, the e2E Corporation, and the acquisition of Plexus Corporation. I moved with them from Oregon to Colorado, and then in 2007 I was informed about the position here at Broadcom. I have been here almost eight years. I'm managing a team of about 40. These people are designers, along with a CAD library team and our two resources that run Valor full time. This is a global team. We have 11 people in Singapore, one person in Canada, one person in India, and the rest of the remaining folks here in America, mainly in California.
Shaughnessy: Is that 40 PCB designers?
Davis: It's managers, designers, librarians, and Valor operators, a combination of all of the above.
Shaughnessy: So, you all rely on Valor?
Davis: We love Valor and the fabricators love the Broadcom packages for fabrication because they don't spend any time in engineering. They go right to the floor for production and we run every single design through Valor. The reason for that is we have two CAD tools. We're using the Mentor Graphics tools and we're using the Cadence tools, but we want our output packages to be consistent, including PDFs, Gerbers, .tgz files, pick-and-place files, etc. We find that Valor provides that third-party platform in order for us to quickly and automatically create those deliverables which we then load into our ERP systems for release to the suppliers.
Shaughnessy: What kind of design challenges are your teams facing?
Davis: Certainly the challenge we have as a world leader in semiconductors is the breadth of technology that we see. We see everything from two layer boards to 24-layer boards. We have a group here doing ATE boards. We're doing simple Bluetooth boards, WiFi boards, high-speed networking boards. So I think that the challenge we have is that, in a large design group, it's good for the designers to get that variety, and that keeps their skill sets really sharp on a variety of technologies. We're not doing power supply after power supply after power supply. You may work on a WiFi board one week and you may work on a cable set-top box or a cable modem the next week. That's one of the dynamic aspects of my group: the variety of technology that Broadcom brings to the table. It’s unique to the industry.
Shaughnessy: We surveyed our readers last month, and some of the designers said that it's getting to be less fun because there's so little real estate and they're just running out of space on the board. Is that a real problem for you too?
Davis: Yes, it's a real problem with the miniaturization of the WiFi circuits and the RF circuits. Certainly cellular telephones and any kind of 4G LTE and the new technologies that are coming up are just getting smaller and smaller. We are seeing 0.35 mm packages, 0.2 mm packages, so you're forced into these HDI, almost completely three-dimensional models that become very difficult to even realize or get a picture of when you first load your schematics and associate it to your board layout. It's very challenging.
Shaughnessy: How small of a via can you design?
Davis: Of course we can design almost anything. The fabricators are typically limiting us in some cases to 4 mil mechanicals, certainly 6 mil is a real break point. But 8 mil mechanicals are not a problem. You can go pretty thick on that. Microvias, we're trying to push down to 4 mils with 8 mil pads. That's pretty tight, but we stay pretty much industry standard as far as Class 2 for our designs. High reliability for most consumer electronics is not that large of an issue. You're certainly not Class 3. Most of our material is still 370HR, except for our high-speed stuff. We are doing some exotic materials and pushing the envelope in the SerDes serial stream gigabits per second.
Shaughnessy: It sounds like you have a really fun job.
Davis: It's a great job. I love being a part of industry opportunities. I want to thank you and appreciate the time to talk to me today.
Shaughnessy: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
Suggested Items
iNEMI Packaging Tech Topic Series: Role of EDA in Advanced Semiconductor Packaging
04/26/2024 | iNEMIAdvanced semiconductor packaging with heterogenous integration has made on-package integration of multiple chips a crucial part of finding alternatives to transistor scaling. Historically, EDA tools for front-end and back-end design have evolved separately; however, design complexity and the increased number of die-to-die or die-to-substrate interconnections has led to the need for EDA tools that can support integration of overall design planning, implementation, and system analysis in a single cockpit.
Cadence, TSMC Collaborate on Wide-Ranging Innovations to Transform System and Semiconductor Design
04/25/2024 | Cadence Design SystemsCadence Design Systems, Inc. and TSMC have extended their longstanding collaboration by announcing a broad range of innovative technology advancements to accelerate design, including developments ranging from 3D-IC and advanced process nodes to design IP and photonics.
Ansys, TSMC Enable a Multiphysics Platform for Optics and Photonics, Addressing Needs of AI, HPC Silicon Systems
04/25/2024 | PRNewswireAnsys announced a collaboration with TSMC on multiphysics software for TSMC's Compact Universal Photonic Engines (COUPE). COUPE is a cutting-edge Silicon Photonics (SiPh) integration system and Co-Packaged Optics platform that mitigates coupling loss while significantly accelerating chip-to-chip and machine-to-machine communication.
Siemens’ Breakthrough Veloce CS Transforms Emulation and Prototyping with Three Novel Products
04/24/2024 | Siemens Digital Industries SoftwareSiemens Digital Industries Software launched the Veloce™ CS hardware-assisted verification and validation system. In a first for the EDA (Electronic Design Automation) industry, Veloce CS incorporates hardware emulation, enterprise prototyping and software prototyping and is built on two highly advanced integrated circuits (ICs) – Siemens’ new, purpose-built Crystal accelerator chip for emulation and the AMD Versal™ Premium VP1902 FPGA adaptive SoC (System-on-a-chip) for enterprise and software prototyping.
Listen Up! The Intricacies of PCB Drilling Detailed in New Podcast Episode
04/25/2024 | I-Connect007In episode 5 of the podcast series, On the Line With: Designing for Reality, Nolan Johnson and Matt Stevenson continue down the manufacturing process, this time focusing on the post-lamination drilling process for PCBs. Matt and Nolan delve into the intricacies of the PCB drilling process, highlighting the importance of hole quality, drill parameters, and design optimization to ensure smooth manufacturing. The conversation covers topics such as drill bit sizes, aspect ratios, vias, challenges in drilling, and ways to enhance efficiency in the drilling department.