Microwave

Office® For
Signal Integrity
Signal Integrity AWR SI software so thoroughly integrates
Solution for HSPICE design kits from Xilinx that simulating the

High-Speed Designs entire system interconnect from transmitter to

receiver was surprisingly simple and insightful.

Bill Dempsey, Red Wire Enterprises

AWR signal integrity (SI) solution incorporates key elements of our flagship
Microwave Office® design suite along side Synopsys’ world class HSPICE® spice
simulator in order to provide engineers with the tools they need to meet the
demanding and challenging needs of today’s high-data-rate designs. With speeds
increasing from hundreds of megabits per second to gigabits per second, high-data-
rate digital signals deviate from the “norm” and become analog in nature, requiring
an entirely new approach to design. That is, high-frequency design tools, including
electromagnetic (EM) simulation, are essential when designing systems operating
at these speeds. This fact, plus the increased number of variables that must be
addressed when creating high-speed designs, is precisely why Microwave Office for
Signal Integrity (also known as AWR SI) exists.

PRODUCTIVITY-FOCUSED DESIGN FLOW

Ready for today’s high-speed designs AWR SI can concurrently manage
multiple stack-ups, or technology files, representing the integrated circuits (ICs),
their packages, the printed circuit board (PCB), and all associated die-to-board
electrical
electr models. This gives you much more flexibility for verification. It is no
longer necessary to extract macro-models of IC-level components for simulation
with package- and PCB-level models – you can now co-design module-level
Gbps interconnects with driver and receiver circuitry at the transistor level
or using IBIS macromodels, while including the effects of bond-wires and
surface-mount PCB devices. Packaging limitations and die constraints can
be taken into account early in the design process, so that you can avoid
after-the-fact design problems that come from oversimplied off-die load
model, and eliminate the painful debugging process of trying to fix them.

USER-FLEXIBLE DESIGN ENVIRONMENT

An AWR founding principle is that our customers should be able to

integrate tools from third parties to give them the most complete solution
at different stages of the design process. That commitment continues
today with an even greater array of options than ever.

HSPICE simulation AWR SI seamlessy integrates HSPICE from Synopsys

— the gold standard for over 25 years in IC circuit simulation. All major
foundries provide HSPICE transistor models for sign-off simulation, and
chip vendors provide either IBIS or triple-DES encrypted netlists for
HSPICE. The HSPICE integration also includes a special interface layer to
enforce passivity and causality on imported S-parameter data sets.
Frequency- and time-domain simulation (APLAC®/HSPICE) Adaptively mapping
chip/package/board layouts to simulation-ready models, AWR SI enables you to Design issues are compounded when the
simulate in both frequency- and time-domain and to migrate between the two, previously packaged IC is integrated onto a PCB
that includes of bond wires, bumps, and vias.
all the while combining transistor level or IBIS models, S-parameter files, HSPICE
encrypted netlists, and more.

EM Socket™: plug and play with third-party EM point tools AWR’s EM Socket
integrates popular EM solvers into the flow -- without leaving AWR SI. Choose tools
like AWR’s own ACE™, AXIEM™ or EMSight™, as well as those from vendors like
CST, Sonnet, Zeland, and more… as high performing high speed interconnects are
best modeled in the frequency-domain with EM technologies such as these.

PCB and packaging co-design support Integration of existing pre-designed PCB

and package layouts is supported by AWR SI through AWR Connected™ and Alliance
Partners for third-party products from Mentor Graphics, Cadence and others.

USE-MODEL SPECIFIC FEATURES

As clock rates and signal speeds increase,
inclusion of high-frequency electromagnetic effects
are necessary to model the complexities of fast,
leading-edge signals, variable fanouts, dense
interconnects, and complex loads and receivers.
AWR SI offers multiple ways to generate signals
for high-speed digital design and analysis:

• Tuning – AWR SI’s real-time tuning gives

immediate feedback regarding design
performance but, more importantly, it
provides a ready way to evaluate multiple
“what if” scenarios.

• Eye diagram – One of the best visual aids for

evaluating the robustness of a high-speed
data design; Eye diagram is fully supported
within AWR SI and a comprehensive set of eye
measurements is provided like jitter,
Eye diagram – AWR SI and HSPICE produce accurate signal integrity
under/overshoot, rise/fall time, eye quality simulation results by combining the best nonlinear I/O buffer models
factor and more. available with 100 GHz validated distributed element models.
 www.awrcorp.com
www.awr.tv

USA Key Features of Microwave Office for

Corporate Headquarters Signal Integrity
AWR Corporation
Powerful, concurrent, and unified signal integrity analysis environment for
1960 E. Grand Avenue, Suite 430 high-frequency/high-speed designs
El Segundo, CA 90245
Simultaneously consider interconnects across IC, package, and PCB
+1 310 726 3000
Synopsys’ HSPICE for fast and accurate time-domain simulation
+1 310 726 3005 (fax)
AWR’s APLAC high-speed, high-capacity harmonic balance and transient
Japan simulator for comprehensive and accurate frequency/time-domain simulation
AWR Japan KK
Supports signals from hardware, IBIS models, MatLab co-simulation, and
Level 5, 711 Building
encrypted HSPICE
7-11-18 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku
ACE automatic circuit extraction technology provides 10,000x speed
Tokyo 160-0023 Japan
improvement over EM simulation
+81 3 5937 4803

UK Intelligent Net™ (iNet) technology extracts interconnects across multiple

AWR UK technology domains
2 Hunting Gate
EM Socket for easy access to multiple EM simulation and analysis tools,
Hitchin, Herts including AWR’s ACE, AXIEM and EMSight technologies
SG4 0TJ, UK
Imports/supports a variety of models, including circuit netlist, multiple
+44 (0) 1462 428 428
models such as circuit netlist (SPICE or Spectre format), IBIS, S-parameter
block, etc.
Finland
AWR – APLAC Third party PCB and package co-design support.(optional)
Lars Sonckin kaari 16 Visualization, including real-time tuning for what if analysis, eye diagrams
FI-02600 Espoo, Finland for performance checks, and more
+358 10 834 5900

France
AWR France
140 Avenue Champs Elysees
75008 Paris, France
+33 1 70 36 19 63

Copyright © 2009 AWR Corporation. All rights reserved. AWR and the AWR logo, Microwave Office and
APLAC are registered trademarks and AXIEM, ACE, AWR Connected, EMSight, EM Socket and Intelligent Net
are trademarks of AWR Corporation. All others are the property of their respective holders.