Design engineers dealing with electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and signal integrity (SI) of PCBs, can now employ CST BOARDCHECK™ to get a quick overview of potential problems in their layout. It supports a multitude of popular layout formats such as CADENCE®ALLEGRO®, Zuken CR 5000, Mentor Graphics®Expedition® and ODB++, which are read-in using the sophisticated CST STUDIO SUITE®import filters.
Once imported, the engineer can easily check nets critical to the design against a number of individually selectable, industrially well established design rules, in order to ensure the EMC and SI of the design. EMC rules include net reference (net crossing split), wiring, crosstalk (critical net near I/O net), decoupling (capacitor density), and placement (I/O filter distance). SI rules include net integrity (net length) and via integrity (unconnected via pads).
CST BOARDCHECK rapidly generates a report listing all violations and enables the user to highlight the corresponding problematic portions of the design. If required, the user can carry out further analyses with a CST PCB STUDIO®solver or perform a push-button export for 3D full wave simulation in CST MICROWAVE STUDIO®.
“We are happy to see that with the release of CST BOARDCHECK, the knowledge and expertise of EMSAT is now available inside CST STUDIO SUITE. EMSAT is a well established design rule checker for EMC and SI rules used by major companies worldwide that is built based on hundreds of man-years expertise gathered at IBM”, commented Dr. Bruce Archambeault, Distinguished Engineer, IBM. “This brings the analysis speed of design rule checking to a 3D environment and enables users to quickly and easily study the detected violations in full detail.”
“Our customers require tools that enable them to find problems in their designs quickly”, stated Dr. Bernhard Wagner, Managing Director Sales & Marketing, CST. “An excellent design rule checker such as EMSAT can help them to survey their device. With the release of CST BOARDCHECK we have made the state-of-the-art EMSAT rules for EMC and SI available to them, stand alone or inside CST STUDIO SUITE.”