Three Ways to Improve High-Speed PCB Signoff, Part 1

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Signal integrity (SI) and power integrity (PI) are top priorities for engineers designing today’s high-speed, high-density circuit boards, and faster signoff of designs can be achieved by uncovering SI/PI issues early in the design process, before costly respins are required. Three key issues engineers need to overcome to sign off on high-speed PCB designs include power analysis, serializer/deserializer (SerDes) link compliance, and double data rate (DDR) memory interface compliance.

The power delivery network (PDN) must be sufficient, efficient, and stable, and the signal quality must meet memory interface and serial link compliance specifications. This article highlights a PCB design methodology that empowers PCB design teams to create successful products on time and on budget without waiting for SI and PI specialists who may not be readily available.

Design Analysis Frameworks

There are several important frameworks to consider when designing PCBs (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Design analysis frameworks.

The design begins with the schematics, followed by the layout, and then, late in the layout phase, a detailed analysis is done to ensure the layout functions properly. During the design cycle tasks, priorities and focus change, but one critical rule of thumb is that the earlier problems are uncovered and corrected, the better.

Electronic product development has traditionally embraced a workflow in which the detailed simulation, analysis, and optimization takes place at a very late stage in the design process, often as the final step of verification and signoff. However, this delay inevitably leads to costly issues that derail budgets and delay time to market. Defects in requirements and performance are uncovered that require additional cycles to address these issues, which could have been discovered and mitigated earlier in the design phase.

To read this entire article, which appeared in the August 2023 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.