Design Automation


Mentor expands PADS PCB design tools

7 September 2016 Design Automation

Mentor Graphics announced the latest additions to the PADS PCB Product Creation Platform. New analog/mixed-signal (AMS) and high-speed analysis products address engineering challenges associated with mixed-signal design, DDR implementation and electrically-correct design signoff.

Tightly integrated and highly affordable, the new PADS AMS Design Suite, PADS AMS Cloud, PADS HyperLynx DRC and PADS HyperLynx DDR products streamline the design process and ensure circuit performance goals are met, reducing the need for prototypes and design re-spins. Combined with the recently announced PADS HyperLynx DC Drop and PADS FloTHERM XT products for power integrity and thermal analysis, the extended platform gives engineers access to technologies that were formerly out of reach for the mainstream PCB market.

PADS AMS Cloud – which is a cloud-based circuit exploration/simulation environment and user community – is available free for all PADS users. Users from all levels of expertise can create and share analog, mixed-signal and mixed-technology designs in an online, collaborative environment where designs and models can be published or downloaded. Circuit designs created in PADS AMS Cloud can be transferred to the PADS AMS Design Suite desktop environment, eliminating the need to manually recreate circuits to perform advanced analysis and drive the PCB design flow.

The PADS AMS Design Suite empowers engineers to design and simulate analog/mixed-signal and digital in one environment. Within one schematic session, both analog circuit simulation leveraging the power and flexibility of VHDL-AMS (an IEEE standard, along with a powerful SPICE-based simulation engine), and topology exploration with the HyperLynx tool can be performed. Beyond common core AMS simulation analysis (DC bias, time-domain and frequency-domain simulations) additional extended analysis capabilities are included as standard, such as multi-run parametric sweeps, sensitivity, Monte Carlo and worst case analysis to address specific engineering needs.

DDR memory has become commonplace across the spectrum of electronics designs and is now found in the mainstream markets. By extending the PADS Product Creation Platform to include integrated DDR simulation, the new PADS HyperLynx DDR option allows engineers to quickly identify and solve signal integrity (SI) and timing issues specific to DDRx designs in an easy-to-use and affordable environment.

Now available for the mainstream PCB design market, the PADS HyperLynx DRC tool accelerates the electrical sign-off process by allowing engineers to perform electrical rules checks and identify violations that will affect the design integrity and performance of the board. With pre-defined rules, issues such as traces crossing voids and traces changing reference planes can be quickly identified even on the largest designs. Integrated electrical DRC technology enables engineers to be confident that their PCB designs are electrically correct before hand-off to manufacturing.





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