Ansoft Releases SIwave v3.5

By DE Editors

Ansoft Corporation (Pittsburgh, PA; ansoft.com) has released a full-wave electromagnetic field simulator for electromagnetic interference (EMI) analysis. SIwave v3.5 features a finite-element-based DC solver optimized for extraction of power rail geometry in low-voltage/high-current printed circuit boards and integrated circuit packages.

Engineers can view voltage and current distributions in all relevant geometry, including vias and bond wires. In addition, users have access to voltage drop and current flow information through all layout elements (vias, bond wires, sources, resistors, inductors, etc.) in tabular format.

Using Ansoft’s mesh refinement technology, SIwave v3.5 finds layout problems and warns of possible bond wire and via electromigration damage prior to the fabrication of a prototype.

SIwave simulates the electromagnetic behavior of complex PCBs and IC packages, including multiple, arbitrarily shaped power and ground layers and any number of vias and signal traces. The resulting full-wave S-,Y- or Z-parameters or GHz-bandwidth circuit model is used in concert with time- and frequency-domain analyses within Nexxim and DesignerSI or third-party SPICE-compatible circuit tools.

Engineers can use SIwave to extract a model for the interactions among traces on the board, the coupled impedances within the IC package, and between package pins and the PCB. That model can then be used in a top-level circuit simulation to characterize the nonlinear behavior of an IC, including the package and board parasitics.

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Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.