Alcatel-Lucent - TLA ‘Telecom, Network Controllers, Line Cards’ category winner

Alcatel-Lucent - TLA ‘Telecom, Network Controllers, Line Cards’ category winner

The 2010 Technology Leadership Awards competition is just around the corner. To showcase the complexity of last year’s entries I’ve been blogging the details of each of the winning designs. The telecom category routinely produces ‘monster’ designs with large dimensions and high layer / net / component counts. Alcatel-Lucent’s entry – the winner in this category – epitomized those characteristics. Alcatel-Lucent has a history of design excellence – another team within the organization claimed the award for best overall design in 2008.

Design team: Susan Plul, Max Ko

End product use: 32 port 10GHz SFP+ board for data centers

Stats:

Design challenges:

• Design for…signal/power integrity, cost, govt. compliance, manufacturability, reliability, testability, and thermal constraints
• Huge component and connection counts; 22477in. of interconnect (.35miles); 35 power rails
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• Routing 0.8mm BGA without HDI
• 1500+ point-to-point no-via diff pairs
• Vias designed for reliability (CAF), manufacturability (via dimensions relative to board thickness), testability (on bottom side), performance (back drilling for SERDES lines)
• Extensive high-speed constraints
• Thermal – Air flow and heat dissipation a major concern;  500W power to dissipate; high currents

Design tools:

• Used the Expedition Enterprise flow
• Heavy design reuse for efficiency and reduced cycle time (71% of components within reuse blocks, making placement & routing efficient; also reused schematic/layout design block across designs across multiple global divisions; ensured consistency from board to board).

Judge’s comments:

• “Serious challenges, serious solution, very well documented. No more to say - this designer really knows their stuff.”

Design images:

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