High Speed PCB Design

Why is High Speed PCB Design so crucial nowadays? In the current and emerging technologies of today, you need a solution to effectively handles the design challenges of large numbers of constraints, complex placement, and net tuning, high-performance differential pair routing, and HDI / micro-via technology, while optimizing for manufacturing design quality.

An extensive set of constraints to meet high-speed performance requirements is required, whether you’re routing interactively or automatically your High Speed PCB Design. A single constraint management environment needs to be shared between schematic capture and layout, and the use of the context-sensitive constraint editor, embedded directly within the schematic and layout environments, to define constraints at any design stage is a key point to success. Constraints should include same layer and adjacent layer differential pairs, controlled impedance, net scheduling, match groups, complex and custom topologies, pin-pairs and pin-set rules, min/max/match length and delay, Z-axis clearances, and much more. A plus is the possibility to define package to package constraints for 2D or 3D layouts.

An auto-assisted routing can provide the speed and efficiency of auto-routing in High Speed PCB Design, with complete user control and high quality. Starting with a basic sketch of the route, a designer can draw a sketch path to guide the location for the routing of the connections. Then automation can route individual, dozens, or even hundreds of netlines many times faster than manual routing. The focus must be on quality; little cleanup is needed, better if none at all. The high routing completion rate (typically >90%) can be achieved with the ability to automatically optimize the escapes from components like BGAs so they are optimal for routing without any additional vias. A finer routing process can be applied for routing that does not complete to 100%, extracting the design intent using existing routing to create a local bias to automate the routing process.

This approach allows the designer to develop an optimized routing strategy using sketch plans. These plans can be manipulated like regular traces and contain the same functionality just described.

A real trace plow routing automation can be very useful to guide the routing with dynamic visual feedback while pushing and shoving vias and traces out of the way, and even clearing plane areas as you route. Additional controls should be considered to allow the user to add design tolerances to aid in higher board fabrication yields. When there is a large set of routes that need to be moved, even across rule areas, a dynamic editing capability enables smooth and fast movement of traces while it automatically removes extra segments and maintains high quality. Additionally, in non-symmetric pad arrays where 45-degree routing is prevented, it is necessary to route between pads at odd angles and around pads with curves to escape the most challenging BGA patterns.