Test Tooling Solutions Group (TTSG), a global manufacturer of ATE test toolings for the semiconductor industry, has adopted Ansoft Corp.'s PCB Design Suite, including HFSS™, Nexxim®, Ansoft Designer® and Optimetrics™. TTSG's adoption of the Suite extends the firm's core design competency, strengthens its pool of intellectual property assets and minimizes time-to-market for new products - critical success factors in the fast-moving semiconductor tool market.

TTSG is developing innovative design flows that link process-accurate models of critical, board-level structures with advanced circuit and system simulation. TTSG will use HFSS to model 3D structures such as spring contact probes and then extract frequency-based circuit models for these structures. The extracted sub-circuit models will be inserted into full-channel models, which will then be simulated in the Ansoft Designer/Nexxim circuit simulation environment.

Optimetrics will be used to test design changes, visualize trade-offs and identify the optimal design solution prior to fabrication. Distributed Solve will reduce simulation times by running parallel simulations across TTSG's compute farm. With Ansoft's PCB Design Suite, TTSG designers will be able to accurately predict system-level behavior prior to device fabrication. With this insight, TTSG Quality engineers are anticipating fewer first-run failures - a step closer to the much-discussed goal of first-pass system success.

"Our customers are requesting fast turnaround of highly engineered PCB solutions, and they expect these solutions to work correctly the first time," said S.L. Wee, president and CEO of the Test Tooling Solutions Group. "Our research and testing show that Ansoft offers the best solution to help our customers meet these objectives."

"Ansoft is pleased to announce this partnership with TTSG," said Alex Teo, country manager for Ansoft Singapore. "TTSG's traditional business model has been to build an intellectual property infrastructure around its design and production processes to deliver a value proposition based on quality and timely delivery. Ansoft's PCB Design Suite will support this tradition."