TINLEY PARK, IL - Mentor Graphics Corp announced the winners of its 20th annual PCB Technology Leadership Awards at a ceremony during the
PCB East 2008 in Tinley Park, IL.
The TLA program, started in 1998, is the longest running competition of its kind in the electronic design automation (EDA) industry. Each year engineers and computer aided design (
CAD) designers are recognized for using innovative methods and design tools to address today’s complex PCB systems design challenges and produce industry-leading products.
A panel of industry experts judged 96 entries from 21 countries in six categories representing a wide variety of industries. Submissions came in from all over the world including, China, India, Egypt, France, Belgium, Austria, Japan, Germany, Canada, Israel and United States.
The PCB industry expert judges included Happy Holden, senior technology specialist of Mentor Graphics; Gary Ferrari, technical support director, FTG Circuits; Pete Waddell, vice president of UP Media Group, publisher of Printed Circuit Design & Fab Magazine; and Rick Hartley, senior principal engineer, avionics division of L-3 Communications.
2008 Technology Leadership Award Winners
Category: Best Overall Design
Winner: Alcatel Lucent (France)
Design Team: Laurent Moquet, Jean-Claude Simon
The end product use is an ATCA single blade computer to handle high-end computing. The design includes 15,000 vias, 4.5 miles of interconnect, 8280 components, 20,000 connections, high component density, high-speed signals, power dissipation and thermal issues.
Category:
Consumer Electronics & Handhelds Winner:
Philips Consumer Lifestyle (Belgium)
Design Team: Pascal Pardo, Goedgebeur Emmanuel, De Pauw Bertrand, De Keyzer Randal, Vanderghote Jean-Christophe, Parmentier Jurgen
The end product is a digital panel for a high-end digital TV. The design is shieldless, so there were EMC issues, particularly with the DDR2.
Runner Up:
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Japan)
Design Team: Masahiro Hosoda, Shuhei Osako
End product use is a HD video camera. The board is all HDI with a 3+4+3 construction. It has 14,618 vias, 0.85 miles of interconnect crammed into five square inches.
Category:
Industrial Control, Instrumentation, Security & Medical Winner:
GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms (USA)
Design Team: Jack Henslee, Fred Girgenti, Owen Wells
The end use application is a Gigabit Ethernet network interface and control module for a programmable logic controller. The board has 26 layers. One half of the nets are high-speed and there are 19 FPGAs.
Runner Up:
CiBOARD Electronic GmbH (Germany)
Design Team: Michael Schwitzer, Torsten Preische
The end use application is a miniature central processing and control unit for scan-head application. It is a high density layer stack-up with HDI.
Category:
Military & Aerospace Winner:
DRS Technologies (Canada)
Design Team: Robert Turzo, Andre Demers
The end use application is a Gigabit Ethernet router server. The board has 22 layers with 2 microvia layers top and bottom. Embedded passives are used. There is high-speed digital and optical circuitry, 472 high-speed nets, 139 ICs, and 29 high-density BGAs.
Runner Up: L-3 Communications (USA)
Design Team: Jayson Harames, Mike Talbot
The end use application is a common processor module for proprietary data link. The board has 16 layers with 1 layer of microvias top and bottom. There are 1345 components, 150+ diff pairs, and edge rates of 50ps.
Category:
PC Computers and Peripherals Winner:
ACCM Computing (Egypt) Designer: Ahlmed Essam
The end use application is a desktop motherboard. The board is 4 layers with 390 high-speed nets. The board is high-frequency for multiple signaling protocols including DDR2, Hypertransport, SATA2 and PCI Express. There was price constraints so they did not use HDI and instead pushed the standard 4 mil line/space envelop.
Runner Up: Xerox Corporation (USA)
Design team: Jeng Lee, Annie Kosasih, Raul Jasmin, Raul OropezaCerda
The end use product is a low-profile PCI Express interface card to provide video and command-status interface, and a production printer. The board uses microvia-scale dimensions without adding HDI.
Category:
Telecommunication Switches, Network Servers, Base Stations and Computer Mainframes Winner:
Broadcom Corporation (USA)
Design Team: John Mehlmauer, Michael Hurt
The end use application is a duel 10G Base-T Ethernet controller. The board containes 0.8mm pitch BGAs, diff pairs and microvia dimensions without HDI.
Runner Up: RAD Data Communications Ltd. (Israel)
Designer: Olga Goykhberg
The end use application is a GMUX main switch fabric and uplink module. The board is a 16 layer with 2 HDI layers on each side. It has 41,000 vias, 13,500 connections and 26 FPGAs.
Category: Transportation and Automotive
Winner: AVL List GmbH (Austria)
Design Team: Wolfgang Rinner, Gernot Fernitz, Ewald Schenkirsch
The end use application is a unit for data acquisition and data processing of engine combustion. The board has 16 layer with 1+1 HDI on top and bottom. There are 500 high-speed nets and along with high performance FPGAs.
Runner Up: Johnson Controls (USA)
Design Team: Scott Smith, Steve Mainville, Keith VanLiere
The end use application is a automotive cluster for a hybrid vehicle. High-speed and EMI design that required concurrent design due to time constraint.
