CiBOARD - 2009 PCB TLA 'industrial control' category winner

This blog is part of a series talking about the 2009 Technology Leadership Awards competition and winners in each category. This time we’re highlighting CiBOARD, who won the award in the ‘Industrial Control, Instrumentation, Security & Medical’ category. CiBOARD is a repeat winner in this category.

Design team: Michael Schwitzer

End product use: Preprocessor and correction-unit for high speed measurement / data acquisition in compact cases (first use:  pixel processing in camera studio equipment).

Stats:

Design challenges:

• Design for…signal and power integrity, and reliability
• 2-18-2 HDI stack-up (~16,000 vias; ~10,000 pins)
• Tight performance constraints (multigigabit diff pairs matched within 0.1mm; impedance controlled routing). Data rates of 50-60Gbps across signals.
• 1700+ pin FPGA with DDR, LVDS, SERDES interfaces
• Regional area rules under 0.5mm pitch uBGA
• PowerPC processor at 40gbps
• Terminating resistors placed directly under the FPGA for optimal timing and lower power dissipation
• Small placement area
• Power distribution issues - high currents required for the FPGA core (about 10Amp)
• Coordinated with three target manufacturers

Preparing Recommendations

Design tools:

• PADS & Expedition Enterprise flows (PADS for placement, Expedition for routing)
• HyperLynx SI for simulations
• “The first simulations showed the way for effective address-routing…the result was First Time Right.”

Judge’s comments:

• “Unquestionably a complex board, and a credit to the designer. Good use of the tools, and good use of the layers.”

Design images:

Preparing Recommendations