Nanya Technology
Mentor Graphics HyperLynx Pl and SI tools helped Nanya Technology engineers correct an intermittent reference design problem in the company's DRAM technology.
“I’m quite impressed by the power integrity tool. I like that it has both the time domain and the frequency domain simulations.”
Jeff Johnson, Simulations Engineer, Nanya Technology
How Mentor Graphics products help Nanya succeed
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HyperLynx Signal Integrity (SI)
product overview: Mentor Graphics' HyperLynx® suite enables PCB signal integrity analysis and simulation, even with SERDES applications, quickly and accurately.
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HyperLynx Power Integrity (PI)
product overview: Mentor Graphics' HyperLynx® PI enables quick detection and improvement of PCB Power integrity design and analysis issues.
The Problem
Nanya Technology manufacturers DRAMs and memory modules. Jeff Johnson, simulations engineer with Nanya, has the daunting task of simulating behavior of those very dense, very fast memory modules and identifying any issues. Recently, in a design for a JEDEC reference design, an intermittent problem was discovered. Intermittent problems are every engineer’s pain-in-the-neck. “From the design perspective,” says Johnson, “the challenge is the setup and hold, clock cleanliness and proper termination; and really with DDR designs it’s all about getting a clean clock, and getting the addresses to be in phase properly so the setup and hold margins are as generous as possible.”
The Solution
Running both power and signal integrity analyses, Johnson determined that the corners of the module were being starved for power at times, thus resulting in the intermittent problems. With the analysis power of HyperLynx, the tool was set up quickly (“30 minutes” according to Johnson), and the problem quickly identified.
The Results
We did some analysis and added three more capacitors at each corner and adjusted signals so that we had better ground planes, better feed traces into the existing capacitors. The problem went away! “The things I like about HyperLynx is that it’s very fast to set up, once you go into a design, all the configurations for at least that design type are done, saved off as text files, so you can iteratively bring in the same design over and over,” concluded Johnson.