ANSYS to Release an Electromagnetic Simulation Suite for Printed Circuit Design

This March, ANSYS will release a new finite element solver engine for Slwave software.

This March, ANSYS will release its new Slwave software, which now includes ANSYS electromagnetic simulation suite and finite element solver engine. The suite will help in the design of high-speed printed circuit boards (PCB) and integrated circuits (IC).

With the simulation suite, users can identify potential power delivery problems within their PCB designs. Users can also test both DC (low-voltage, high-current) and AC systems which allows for the modeling of end-to end voltage margins and noise propagation, respectively.

ANSYS product manager Steven Pytel said, “It’s becoming increasingly important for our customers to be able to quickly recognize potential pre- and post-layout power and signal integrity problems for today’s high-speed digital designs … In consultation with our customers, we identified demand for targeted analysis for DC, power integrity, and full systems. The new SIwave technology and workflow provides a complete set of analysis software based on the highest fidelity electromagnetic numerical analyses to address all aspects of PCB and IC package design.”

The release will offer three different packages including Slwave, Slwave-DC, and Slwave-PI.

With Slwave, engineers can test signal integrity by importing a chip CAD geometry and extracting interconnected models. Signal sign off, power delivery and impedance matching can be optimized with this package.

Slwave-DC allows for the analysis of pre/post-layout DC voltage drop, current density and power density. Engineers can use the software to ensure that their power distribution networks are sourcing power properly to their circuits. Bump, wiring, ball/pin sizes and thermal hotspots can all be optimized.

Finally, Slwave-PI uses genetic algorithms to determine constraints such as capacitor density/price, network impedance and more. Capacitor location and mounting can also be optimized.

The software packages can also analyze thermal stress, thermal rise and structural integrity.

Source: ANSYS

Written by

Shawn Wasserman

For over 10 years, Shawn Wasserman has informed, inspired and engaged the engineering community through online content. As a senior writer at WTWH media, he produces branded content to help engineers streamline their operations via new tools, technologies and software. While a senior editor at Engineering.com, Shawn wrote stories about CAE, simulation, PLM, CAD, IoT, AI and more. During his time as the blog manager at Ansys, Shawn produced content featuring stories, tips, tricks and interesting use cases for CAE technologies. Shawn holds a master’s degree in Bioengineering from the University of Guelph and an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.