Printed Circuit Design & Fab Online Magazine - Current

Products

3D Forming FPC is a three-dimensional flexible substrate consisting of thermoplastic liquid crystal polymer and copper foil. Withstands reflow temperatures up to 260°C, and has thermal conductivity of 0.5W/m·K, water absorption rate of less than 0.04%, and and dielectric loss tangent of 0.0025.

Nippon Mektron, www.mektron.com

ELpF lightweight benchtop vibration isolation system can be repositioned, even with a load and in float. Does not damage vibration isolators. Provides vibration isolation for sensitive devices. Features a load capacity of 100 or 300 lbs. Has a 3" high nominal profile; uses a 16" x 19" standard tabletop, and weighs 40 lbs. Features include gauges tilted upward and recessed handles. For supporting atomic force microscopes, microhardness testers, analytical balances, and other gear in laboratories and Class 100 cleanrooms. Self-leveling and active-air isolation give the platform natural frequencies of 1.75 Hz vertical, 2.0 Hz horizontal, and typical isolation efficiencies of 95% (vertical) and 92% (horizontal) at 10 Hz.

Kinetic Systems Inc., www.kineticsystems.com

XFE (Crosshatch Flex Enhancement) technique couples novel 2-D field solvers with a unique algorithm to correct for the effects of flex over a range of typical controlled impedance structures. Enables solvers to more closely model the effects of a wide variety of crosshatch geometries. Permits configuration of hatch pitch (HP) and width (HW). Reduces prototype turns when producing impedance controlled flex PCBs. Models controlled impedance lines with crosshatch or mesh ground returns. Is said to be for any PCB type deploying meshed/cross-hatched return planes (e.g., interposers). Is for Si8000 and Si9000 field solvers.

Polar Instruments, polarinstruments.com

Microwave Studio 2011 has sensitivity analysis and can be used in the transient and frequency domain solver for yield analysis and fast optimization. Transient solver works for a variety of microwave and RF applications. Helps speed up parameter studies and optimization of RF components. Computes broadband s-parameters and field results in one simulation run. Is capable of evaluating the s-parameter dependencies on various model parameters on the basis of one simulation; all further evaluations for different model parameter sets can be derived without restarting the full-wave simulation. Yield analysis for complex 3D models is available. The proposed optimum can be verified by 3D simulation.

CST, www.cst.com

Microwave Studio Asymptotic Solver is based on the shooting bouncing ray method. Now uses farfields as excitation sources. Farfields can be computed by other CST MWS solvers, including the transient and frequency domain solvers. Calculates an installed antenna´s farfield. Importing more than one farfield enables computation of the coupling between several antennae, or of the total farfield, including all antennae. For scattering simulations, many excitation sources can be run in parallel; properties can be set through an excitation list. Enables simulation of an arbitrarily polarized wave incident.

CST, www.cst.com

OptimizePI v. 2.1 pre-layout selection and placement of decoupling capacitors for power delivery networks in PCBs and IC packages. Analysis-based flow is said to fully automate design setup and electrical analysis tasks associated with pre-layout decoupling capacitor planning. Quickly provides optimized initial decoupling capacitor designs that are near-final in nature. Reportedly reduces subsequent design iterations and provides high-quality power delivery networks to help mitigate simultaneous switching output (SSO) and other issues. Describes stack-up attributes, plane size and shape, decoupling capacitor placement guidelines and a library of candidate decoupling capacitors. Electromagnetic simulation engine, combined with a highly efficient genetic optimization algorithm, rapidly analyzes feasible implementation options; it takes into account electromagnetic field propagation inside the power system, device locations and mounting parasitics of decoupling capacitors. Presents list of candidate design schemes organized by performance and cost profiles.

Sigrity, www.sigrity.com