Mentor Graphics Corp. announced its newest version of the HyperLynx® Signal Integrity/Power Integrity (SI/PI) product for high-speed printed circuit board (PCB) designs. The HyperLynx product addresses high-speed systems design problems throughout the design flow—starting at the earliest architectural stages through post-layout verification. With the increased complexity and high-speed performance of today’s integrated circuits (ICs), a growing number of PCBs suffer from signal degradation and timing problems which are exacerbated by power delivery issues; this impacts board performance and possibly total failed logic, requiring costly redesign. 

The comprehensive HyperLynx SI/PI product provides tools for pre- and post-layout signal integrity, timing, crosstalk and power integrity analysis to quickly generate accurate simulation results to prevent design re-spins.  New features in the HyperLynx SI/PI product include power-aware IBIS model support and the DDRx wizard for DDR4/LPDDR4 (next-generation memory for low-power design) validation.

“Socionext is addressing SI/PI issues that get more complicated at higher frequencies. Over 2 Gbps, SSN (Simultaneous Switching Noise) must be considered when designing and simulating DDR4 circuits.  Socionext is working with its customers and partners to address this challenge, and we collaborated with Mentor Graphics to develop a HyperLynx DDR4 simulation kit,” stated Takayuki Tsuru, director of the Custom SoC Business Unit, SoC Product Solution Department, Socionext Inc. “With our IBIS5.0 modeling technique and the HyperLynx power-aware SI solution, we achieved a 95 percent reduction in simulation time with excellent correlation to transistor-level simulation. The simulation kit is available for high performance server and storage applications, and we are also developing a LPDDR4 design kit for low power mobile devices.  We believe our customers and Socionext will be able to continuously improve design efficiency and decrease development costs with Mentor Graphics’ global support.”

“Our market-leading HyperLynx product continues to serve the high-speed demands of today’s most advanced systems designs,” stated A.J. Incorvaia, vice president and general manager of Mentor Graphics Systems Design Division. “Our new power-aware modeling technology enables our customers to quickly and accurately simulate complex signaling protocols, saving them substantial time and cost.”

Power –Aware IBIS Modeling

The new HyperLynx tool supports IBIS [Input/Output Buffer Information Specifications] v5.0 models for ICs that represent non-ideal power effects.  This capability accurately models supply currents, including pre-driver effects, switching slowdown due to sagging supply voltage, and better buffer capacitance modeling.  Power-aware IBIS modeling can be used in all simulation types including DDRx analysis, to study the power effects of timing and signal quality.  This tool can model simultaneous switching noise (SSN), critical for designing next-generation memory interconnects.

DDRx Wizard Supports Latest JEDEC Standards Supporting the latest JEDEC standards, the DDRx Wizard verifies all DDR memory types, including DDR4 and its low-power (LPDDR4) counterparts.  The DDRx Wizard can produce eye diagrams for complete verification of DDR3 and next-generation DDR4 memory systems.  Each individual bit in the simulation is validated using eye-based metric checks, including integrated timing analysis for DDRx and LPDDRx.

Additional HyperLynx SI/PI Product Features:

  • Back drilling support for the accurate simulation of vias with appropriate stubs removed; “what-if” scenarios can be quickly established, and drilling can be enabled or disabled;
  • Touchstone viewer feature calculates ILD, ICR and other metrics in the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet specification and evaluates differential crosstalk characteristics for interconnects including S-parameter model conversion from standard to mixed mode;
  • SERDES enhancements to support new IBIS 6.0 features, CTLE equalization in FastEye Wizard, 128b/130b encoding and configuration file for batch AMI runs.

Product Availability and Information

The HyperLynx product family for “power-aware” high-speed design is available now. Download the new HyperLynx white paper, DDR4 Board Design and Signal Integrity Verification Challenges, at http://go.mentor.com/DDR4-Board-Design. For additional product information, visit:  http://www.mentor.com/pcb/hyperlynx/signal-integrity/. 

To accelerate time-to-productivity using the HyperLynx tool, visit the HyperLynx Alliance, a cloud-based learning center which includes free virtual labs.  The virtual lab series leverages partner models and reference designs with the HyperLynx tools to demonstrate ideal design methodologies that address difficult high-speed printed circuit board (PCB) SerDes and DDR design challenges.