-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueIPC APEX EXPO 2025: A Preview
It’s that time again. If you’re going to Anaheim for IPC APEX EXPO 2025, we’ll see you there. In the meantime, consider this issue of SMT007 Magazine to be your golden ticket to planning the show.
Technical Resources
Key industry organizations–all with knowledge sharing as a part of their mission–share their technical repositories in this issue of SMT007 Magazine. Where can you find information critical to your work? Odds are, right here.
The Path Ahead
What are you paying the most attention to as we enter 2025? Find out what we learned when we asked that question. Join us as we explore five main themes in the new year.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Media kit
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
Keysight, ROHM Enable Designers to Rapidly Modify SMPS Reference Design for SiC Power Devices
October 8, 2020 | Business WireEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Keysight Technologies, Inc., a leading technology company that helps enterprises, service providers and governments accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world, and ROHM Semiconductor, a leading semiconductor company, jointly announce a PathWave Advanced Design System (ADS)-compatible workspace that enables designers to perform pre-compliance testing on virtual prototypes of switched-mode power supply (SMPS) designs. This new capability saves time and cost by catching errors early in the design before they become a big problem.
Demand for SMPS is driven by the need for greater efficiency, increased power density and lower cost. Fast, low-loss switches made from silicon carbide (SiC) and related materials will power future applications due to the high performance and efficiency they enable. However, unwanted side effects from high-speed switching include voltage spikes (“ringing”). In addition, it is more difficult to meet conducted and radiated electromagnetic interference (EMI) specifications in higher speed designs. Pre-compliance analysis of a “virtual prototype” or “digital twin” is ideal for managing this challenge, but previously required expertise to build and use the necessary design information, called a “workspace.”
To address this, Keysight teamed with ROHM to create the “twin” of ROHM’s reference design (model P01SCT2080KE-EVK-001) available to mutual customers via Keysight’s website.
Virtual prototypes are complementary to physical prototypes. Physical prototypes are the gold standard for compliance and measured characteristics, but have several drawbacks including: expensive and time consuming to design, build and measure; are vulnerable to catastrophic failure (the infamous “smoke test” that produces actual smoke); and it is hard to get a measurement probe onto interior nodes.
In contrast, virtual prototypes are easy to change and while they do flag device overstress as warning messages during simulation, they never emit real smoke. The voltage, current and fields at every spatial point in the 3D grid and every time step in the simulation can be recorded and made accessible for plotting, even points that are physically inaccessible in the real world such as inside a semiconductor package.
“Many of our customers struggle to deal with layout effects when current slew rate in the switched loop exceeds 1A/ns because even tiny parasitic inductances cause ringing. Suppressing EMI is also a big challenge for them,” said Ippei Yasutake, Group Leader at ROHM. “The digital twin gives our customers the insights they need to make changes without running into problems.”
“This is going to be a big timesaver for anyone wanting to get the most out of designs that use wide bandgap power devices. The layouts can be hard to tame, and EM extraction is key. This workspace and application-specific tool like PEPro makes things much easier,” said Steve Sandler, Managing Director, Picotest.
“SMPS engineers tell me they are all struggling with is designing in this the high di/dt era,” said Yang Zou, Director of Emerging Business at Keysight’s PathWave Software Solutions division. “They really see the value when I explain the pre-compliance ‘virtual prototyping’ capability of this new workspace.”
Suggested Items
Würth Elektronik Now an Infineon ‘Preferred Partner’
03/13/2025 | Wurth Elektronik eiSosWürth Elektronik, one of the leading manufacturers of electronic and electromechanical components, is broadening its collaboration with semiconductor manufacturers.
Elementary Mr. Watson: Ensuring a Smooth Handoff From PCB Design to Fabrication
03/13/2025 | John Watson -- Column: Elementary, Mr. WatsonAt the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, the U.S. men's 4x100-meter relay team had high hopes of winning a medal. The team comprised some of the fastest sprinters in the world, but something went wrong. In a relay, four runners must smoothly pass their baton to the next runner inside a zone on the track. If a runner drops the baton or it’s passed outside the zone, the team risks disqualification. The U.S. team’s pass between the second and third runner was messy, slowing them down. By the time the last runner received the baton, the team had lost too much time. They finished sixth in their heat and didn’t qualify for the final.
Ventec International Group Announce Launch of VT-47LT IPC4101 /126 Prepreg for HDI
03/12/2025 | Ventec International GroupVentec International Group announce launch of VT-47LT IPC4101 / 126 Prepreg. Are Microvia Failures Plaguing Your HDI Any Layer Designs? High-density interconnect (HDI) designs are pushing the envelope - higher layer count HDI relies on complex microvia designs: skip vias, staggered microvias, and stacked microvias in sequential laminations.
TI Introduces the World's Smallest MCU, Enabling Innovation in the Tiniest of Applications
03/12/2025 | PRNewswireTexas Instruments (TI) introduced the world's smallest MCU, expanding its comprehensive Arm® Cortex®-M0+ MSPM0 MCU portfolio. Measuring only 1.38mm2, about the size of a black pepper flake, the wafer chip-scale package (WCSP) for the MSPM0C1104 MCU enables designers to optimize board space in applications such as medical wearables and personal electronics, without compromising performance.
Speaking the Same Language as Your Fabricator
03/12/2025 | Andy Shaughnessy, Design007 MagazineWe do indeed have a failure to communicate; designers and fabricators often seem to be talking past each other, which can lead to jobs being put on hold. We asked Jen Kolar, VP of engineering for Monsoon Solutions, and columnist Kelly Dack to share their thoughts on ways that we can break down the communication barrier between design and fabrication. As they point out, a design kickoff checklist and a solid review process can be invaluable tools in a designer’s toolbox.