What’s New in Xpedition – Design Verification

In the last What’s New in Xpedition blog post, we reviewed the new Layout features available in the Xpedition VX.2 series of releases. We looked at the increased support for flex and rigid-flex designs, along with support for concurrent sketch planning during team design sessions, enhanced functionality to align a 3D model with a 2D footprint, and the ability to review Valor NPI DRC’s from within the hazard explorer. In this final blog post in the What’s New in Xpedition series, we’ll now take a look under the hood and check out what’s new in the area of Design Verification. Xpedition design verification functionality includes a complete suite of high-speed PCB simulation tools powered by HyperLynx®. Capabilities include signal integrity, power integrity, analog/mixed-signal, full wave, thermal, and vibration analysis. This functionality also includes powerful DRCs for EMI/EMC, SI, and PI design verification.

With the VX.2 series of releases, design verification has been improved and enhanced to include:

• SERDES batch wizard – The HyperLynx SERDES batch wizard supports validation of more than 25 popular operating modes belonging to the Ethernet, OIF-CEI, PCIe, USB, and Fibre Channel protocols. The wizard provides comprehensive specification-based analysis that includes a high-level summary report, as well as links to intermediate information that can be used to debug channel interconnect issues or improve their performance.
• Embedded 3D EM solver – HyperLynx includes an embedded 3D EM solver that automatically finds areas on nets that require a 3D model and then automatically sends the area to the 3D solver. This functionality allows hardware engineers to accurately analyze 10–28Gb/s SERDES links.
• Creepage checking – HyperLynx DRC can check for creepage (the flow of electrical current along the surface of the dielectric material) and report on violations to ensure compliance with IEC standards. This checking is performed during the design phase, greatly reducing issues normally detected during manual post-design verification.

If you would like a preview of what’s new, please feel free to check out the What’s New in Xpedition video, along with online demos of the highlights for each of the VX.2 releases. You can also take a quick tour of Xpedition Enterprise to get a great overview of all the functionality that Xpedition has to offer.

If you happened to miss any of the entries in this What’s New in Xpedition series, they are all available within the PCB & IC Package Design blog posts.