Signal integrity check by simulation to improve PCB performance

Day by day the product cycles are shrinking in order to achieve time to market advantage. The project plans are made based on implicit assumption that the prototype boards will be fully functionally correct and ready for pre-qualification testing and very little change happens from prototype to production board. This has made it imperative that we come up with board designs which are right in first pass itself. Today's board designs are becoming quite complex due to high speed interfaces and shrinking product dimensions. This paper presents the importance of signal integrity and crosstalk simulation in achieving single pass success for today's boards. The paper presents a case study of a fairly complex telecom board done by WIPRO. It is also important to note that the signal behaviour predicted by computer aided engineering (CAE) tools pretty well matches the signals captured on the board and hence provides a lot of confidence and reasoning behind doing such exercise.