Considerations for mixed analog/digital PCB design

Mainstream Electrical Design Automation (EDA) printed circuit board (PCB) tools primarily have focused on automating digital design. Whereas a high level of automation is available today for digital design, analog-specific tools and features have been slower in coming. The now common practice of mixing analog and digital signals on a single PCB has changed the rules for mainstream digital designers. They have turned toward software vendors for help, with increasing success. We'll look at the special needs of analog design and discuss EDA capabilities for addressing some of them. This paper was motivated by ACCEL's interest in adding functionality to the ACCEL EDA product line for supporting the design of mixed analog and digital signal PCBs. Understanding the requirements and subsequently specifying productive software solutions are necessary steps in our ability to offer productive tools for this market. Today, ACCEL EDA includes many of these capabilities, and is used here to illustrate how tools can be used effectively for designing mixed signal PCBs.