Expedition Enterprise
Designing a product requires more than just a great PCB layout tool – you need a tightly integrated design system. Expedition Enterprise provides this high level of integration, enabling all team members to work collaboratively and more efficiently.
Expeditiontm Enterprise's Advanced Technology
- Meets the needs of mid-sized to large electronics companies with complex PCB designs
- Eliminates the burden of managing multiple tools, with its common database and user interface
- Supports globally dispersed design teams with real-time collaboration
- Maintains data integrity - from concept to manufacturing
- Reduces design cycle time and manufacturing costs, while increasing productivity
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Featured Expedition Enterprise Techpubs
Integration of Embedded Components within PCB Structures
Electronics companies are seeing an increased use of embedded components in their PCB designs. Embedded components are fabricated into a printed circuit board and allowed on internal and surface layers. There are several factors driving the trend to use of embedded components over discrete components.
Increased functionality of active devices has the number of passive components growing. The number of discrete passive components is, in many cases 70 to 80% of the total part count and continues to rise as passive-to-active ratios grow. While active devices are being packaged into large pin Ball Grid Arrays (BGAs) the ideal surface placement space for discrete passive components becomes more difficult to obtain.
Also, increased numbers of capacitors are needed as device speeds and digital content increases. Capacitors must be placed close to the IC pin to avoid unacceptable noise or timing delays. Eliminating discrete passive components from the surface layers and embedding them, thus frees surface space and allows the passive devices to be closer to active pins.
Embedded passive components allow for higher frequency (faster) PCBs. The linearity of signals through embedded passive components reduces inductance of "core to surface, return to core" signal paths. Along with lower inductance, embedded passive components can lower power system impedance and radiated emissions - improving the overall electrical performance of a PCB. Also, reliability of the PCB is improved through reducing the overall number of solder joints.
For leading-edge companies, there is also the need for embedded active devices. While additional surface space is made available for other active devices, embedded active devices are not packaged, leading to smaller footprints for the active device. The driving factor to use embedded active devices is reduction in the PCB size format while increasing the active functions.
Printed Circuit Board Routing at the Threshold: Advanced Technology for the New Millennium
During the past several years, we have witnessed an unparalleled wave of technological innovation, followed by rapid market adoption. Spurred on by global competitive pressures, new product introductions have come fast and furiously. Sustaining this blistering pace means decreasing both the time and cost of product design cycles. To successfully collapse design cycles in this way, manufacturers must achieve a significant increase in productivity -- the holy grail of the technology-driven marketplace. It follows that design tools must also become more productive to facilitate attainment of this goal. This paper discusses the market drivers leading to tool innovations and a few results, including: high-density routing, high-speed design, and PCB design environments.
The Basics of PCB Design
PCBs are not so simple anymore
Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are at the heart of the modern electronic packaging found in almost every consumer electronics product. When designed correctly, PCBs bring predictability, making mass reproducibility possible by minimizing wiring lengths, controlling signal integrity issues, and simplifying troubleshooting and repair issues.
But good designs don't just happen. Many of today's PCBs push, if not exceed, the limits of classic board design. Issues that were once important only in bleeding-edge electronics (such as microvias, high-density interconnects, embedded passives, and high-pin-count FPGAs) now complicate even mainstream PCB development.
This article examines the basics of PCB design, the seven-step process for creating a PCB, and the design challenges faced by companies investing in PCB design solutions.
News and Related Articles
- Mentor Graphics and PTC Deliver Industry’s First Bi-Directional ECAD–MCAD Collaboration CapabilitySep 18, 2008
- Mentor Graphics Publishes New Technology Book On BGA Routing by Charles Pfeil Jun 26, 2008
- Mentor Graphics Announces 20th Annual PCB Technology Leadership Awards Program WinnersMay 14, 2008