Mentor Graphics Releases Newest HyperLynx

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Mentor Graphics Corporation has announced its newest HyperLynx release, which integrates signal and power integrity analysis, 3D electromagnetic solving, and fast rule checking into a single unified environment. Based on the popular HyperLynx signal integrity/power integrity (SI/PI) application, this product for the first time offers designers a complete set of analysis technology sufficient for designing any type of high-speed digital printed circuit board (PCB).

Spanning a wide range of underlying simulation engines and a graphical user interface (GUI) that supports both quick/interactive and exhaustive batch-mode analysis, the HyperLynx product now sets a new standard for deployment of high-speed capabilities in one easy-to-use environment.

"We have deployed a 'shift left' strategy where we perform simulation early in the design process to achieve 'first time right' products," stated Hans Klos, CEO of Sintecs BV, Netherlands. "With the new, unified HyperLynx environment, we have one flow where we can do everything – a significant advantage."

The effects on eye closure of increasingly high data rates on an actual SERDES channel are shown using the new HyperLynx product from Mentor Graphics. Faster data rates and higher frequencies demand more and more simulation modeling.

The effects on eye closure of increasingly high data rates on an actual SERDES channel are shown using the new HyperLynx product from Mentor Graphics. Faster data rates and higher frequencies demand more and more simulation modeling.

Accurate High-Performance Simulators – All in One Environment

High-speed PCBs vary greatly in size, layer count, routing density, signaling speed, types of silicon used, and power-delivery challenges. Most tool sets offered by a single EDA vendor typically require switching applications and user interfaces for different types of analysis. By contrast, the HyperLynx tool now offers 2D/3D signal and power integrity analysis in a single application, with one GUI. Users can simulate a critical SERDES channel one minute, and then — by selecting a single new menu item — switch to analysis of a large power net's decoupling.

Mentor has invested heavily in HyperLynx analysis technology, particularly for interconnect modeling. The product now combines a super-fast geometry extraction engine and advanced materials modeling (for wideband dielectrics, copper roughness, etc.) to produce highly accurate simulations.

"This version of HyperLynx is the culmination of intensive investment by Mentor in its high-speed tools," stated A.J. Incorvaia, vice president and general manager of Mentor Graphics Systems Design Division. "HyperLynx has long been a widely used high-speed tool in the industry; now it's become the most powerful and best integrated as well. Designers who still think of HyperLynx as primarily 'fast and easy SI' need to take a serious, fresh look at how dramatically the product has strengthened and matured."

Meeting the Challenges of New Technologies

SERDES technology adoption has greatly increased the frequencies used in digital signaling— even a "mainstream" protocol like PCIe Gen3 runs at 8 Gb/s. The new HyperLynx release provides advanced electromagnetic solvers, including full-wave 3D, enabling users to keep pace with increasingly fast SERDES technologies. The 3D engine is deeply integrated, so the user never has to learn the intricacies of a full-wave-solver environment. This integration ensures that signal and power structure geometries are passed; electromagnetic (EM) ports are formed; simulations are run; and S-parameter results are incorporated into time-domain simulations – automatically.

The new HyperLynx release has added multiple engines — two 2.5D solvers, the industry's fastest DC/IR-drop simulator, and a fast quasi-static 3D solver — to enable a full set of power-integrity features, all of which are available side-by-side in the same application as the HyperLynx signal-integrity capabilities. The second, more-advanced 2.5D solver is capable of pure power and mixed signal-and-power modeling, which can be used to add accuracy to SI simulations when simultaneous-switching-noise (SSN) complications are suspected.

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