Mentor Blogs

This morning I was sent the following comment (name changed to protect the innocent): I don’t need Mentor to fix anything because I don’t do “crappy” work. (Actually a different term was used, but not appropriate for this forum). I don’t do DRC or if I do I ignore the errors and warnings. I just export the gerber files and examine them. DRC is for those who don’t … Read More

Constraints

Too often I see people just using straight length to manage their board timing.  Or take it one step further and turn length into propagation delay.You know, 1 inch is about 166ps.  Which is true, but nowhere near the complete picture for timing.  If you think about it, the whole reason we have length constraints is to make sure data arrives at a certain time.  That means that the signal switches above … Read More

Constraints

I’ve been on a bit of a blogging hiatus, but hopefully I’m returning to a more regularly scheduled program.  Consider it like the Olympics that has interrupted your regular TV programming for the last 2 weeks to show you people who have committed their lives to their passion.  I enjoy it - some of those people do amazing feats often risking life and limb to be the best in the world at what they do. The … Read More

Pre-Layout, Constraints

Around the Western world tomorrow, kids of all ages (include some of us adults) will be celebrating Halloween.   For those of you that may not know what Halloween is, it’s a celebration that originated from an old Celtic tradition where fires were lit to ward off evil spirits on Samhain - Summer’s end.  This was a special night because the people of the time believe that during this night, the separation … Read More

LineSim, Pre-route, Constraints

Recently, I attended the latest OpenAccess (OA) conference put on by Si2. Attendance this year seemed to be up from last year. Whether the increased attendance was due to the increased adoption that we’ve seen in the industry or the fact that the conference was free this year is unclear. However, it is crystal clear that OA is no longer just a promise, and that adoption has moved from the true early … Read More

Calibre, Constraints, Adoption, OpenAccess, Interfaces, Interoperability