Technical Articles From Mentor Graphics

Modeling And Optimizing Wire Harness Costs For Variation Complexity

Apr 25, 2018 | Sjon Moore

An automotive wire harness rarely has just a single part number that can be ordered and installed in a vehicle. Typically, there are many different versions of the same harness based on the orderable content in the vehicle. These versions (often called harness levels) will have unique part numbers. The quantity of these levels and their content is what is typically called complexity and it has a significant impact on the cost of the harness.

Quantifying these costs is often very difficult especially with manual methods of deriving and costing the complexity solution. Therefore, traditionally, harness costing has focused on the piece cost of each harness level. When these complexity related costs are considered it is typically with overly simplified cost modeling techniques.

This paper will focus on the quantification of these complexity related costs so that they can be modeled allowing automated algorithms to optimize for these costs. A number of real world examples will be provided as well. Since no two businesses are alike, it is the aim of this paper to provide the foundational knowledge and methodology so the reader can assess their own business to model how variation complexity costs affect their business....

Mixed Voltages And Aluminum Conductors: Assesing New Electrcal Technology

Feb 07, 2018 | Olivier Neuman

The architecture of vehicle electrical systems is changing rapidly. Electric and hybrid vehicles are driving mixed voltage systems, and cost pressures are making conductor materials like aluminum an increasingly viable competitor to copper.

This paper presents tradeoff studies at the vehicle level, and how to automatically generate an electrical Failure Mode Effects and Analysis (FMEA) report, as well as how to optimize wire sizes for both copper and aluminum at the platform level....

Electronic Does Not Equal Smart: Service Documentation and Brand Quality

Feb 01, 2018 | Muhammad Askar

This paper briefly summarizes the technologies underpinning the evolution in electrical system diagnosis and repair, which include schematic layout automation using prototypes and rule-based styling, instant language translation, 2D/3D view links with schematics, interactive diagnostic procedures, and dynamically-generated signal-tracing diagrams. These technologies empower after-sales service teams with state-of-the-art capabilities, which not only reduce costs but also improve brand quality in the eyes of its customers. ...

IPC-1782 Standard for Traceability Supporting Counterfeit Components

Jan 04, 2018 | Michael Ford

Traceability has grown from being a specialized need for certain safety critical segments of the industry, to now being a recognized value-add tool for the industry as a whole. The perception of traceability data collection however persists as being a burden that may provide value only when the most rare and disastrous of events take place. Disparate standards have evolved in the industry, mainly dictated by large OEM companies in the market create confusion, as a multitude of requirements and definitions proliferate.

The intent of the IPC-1782 project is to bring the whole principle and perception of traceability up to date. Traceability, as defined in this standard will represent the most effective quality tool available, becoming an intrinsic part of best practice operations, with the encouragement of automated data collection from existing manufacturing systems, integrating quality, reliability, predictive (routine, preventative, and corrective) maintenance, throughput, manufacturing, engineering and supply-chain data, reducing cost of ownership as well as ensuring timeliness and accuracy all the way from a finished product back through to the initial materials and granular attributes about the processes along the way. ...

Luceda Photonics Delivers a Silicon Photonics IC Solution in Tanner L-Edit.

Apr 06, 2017 | Wim Bogaerts, Pieter Dumon, Martin Fiers; Luceda Photonics, Jeff Miller; Mentor Graphics

Silicon photonics is an IC technology where data is transferred using light that is routed on the chip using optical waveguides (Figure 1). Silicon photonics is best known as a method to solve problems with high input/output bandwidth applications. For example, because of ever-growing bandwidth requirements in datacenters, the optical transmit and receive heads are being placed closer and closer to the board and the IC. But, designers also apply this technology to biosensors, medical diagnostics, and environmental monitoring. Regardless of the application, photonic ICs always need integration to electronic circuits and this results in unique challenges....

Analog FastSPICE Platform Full-Circuit PLL Verification

Jun 30, 2016 | Mentor Graphics

When designing PLLs in nanometer CMOS, it is essential to validate the closed-loop PLL performance metrics with nanometer SPICE accuracy before going to silicon. Transistor-level, closed-loop PLL verification has been impractical due to traditional SPICE and RF simulator performance and capacity limitations. By using Analog FastSPICE, designers dont have to trade accuracy for performance.

Read this white paper to see how AFS:

• Delivers closed-loop PLL transistor-level verification
• Supports direct jitter measurements
• Produces phase noise results correlating within 1-2dB of silicon

...

How Reshoring Drives Profitability

May 05, 2016 | Michael Ford.

For many years, manufacturing has sought to increase competitiveness by moving off-shore to countries with lower labour costs. Electronic manufacturing services (EMS) companies provided an essential element to make off-shore transfer happen more quickly, offering further cost reduction opportunities from load balancing. Fierce arguments were put forward to protect the loss of local jobs, although the result was, in almost all cases, inevitable. Today, however, the whole market of PCBbased electronics products has changed significantly. The "pros" of off-shoring are no longer what they once were, and the "cons" are becoming more significant because off-shore manufacturing can no longer satisfy the needs of the market.

In this paper, we expose the real costs of off-shore manufacturing, and put labour cost differentials into perspective. We demonstrate how practically, using existing technologies, re-shored manufacturing can yield better business return, either for an OEM, or through EMS providers.

Streamlining PCB Assembly and Test NPI with Shared Component Libraries

Apr 08, 2016 | Julian Coates

PCB assembly designs become more complex year-on-year, yet early-stage form/fit compliance verification of all designed-in components to the intended manufacturing processes remains a challenge. So long as librarians at the design and manufacturing levels continue to maintain their own local standards for component representation, there is no common representation in the design-to-manufacturing phase of the product lifecycle that can provide the basis for transfer of manufacturing process rules to the design level. A comprehensive methodology must be implemented for all component types, not just the minority which happen to conform to formal packaging standards, to successfully left-shift assembly and test DFM analysis to the design level and thus compress NPI cycle times.(...)

This paper will demonstrate the technological components of the working solution: the logic for deriving repeatable and standardized package and pin classifications from a common source of component physical-model content, the method for associating DFA and DFT rules to those classifications, and the transfer of those rules to separate DFM and NPI analysis tools elsewhere in the design-through-manufacturing chain resulting in a consistent DFM process across multiple design and manufacturing organizations....

A New Paradigm For Design Through Manufacture

Apr 19, 2012 | Michael Ford, Valor Division of Mentor Graphics Corp.

Presented at IPC Apex 2012. Working through the New Product Introduction (NPI) flow between product design and manufacturing is usually a challenging process, with both parties being experts in their own fields and inextricably linked in the flow of g...

Dealing with the Top Five Factory Floor Productivity Killers in the PCB Industry

Apr 16, 2009 | Dr. Henry Jurgens; Valor Division of Mentor Graphics Corp.

The worldwide electronics industry has sales of $750 billion, two thirds of which is accounted for by PCB assembly. PCB manufacturing is characterised by an obsessive drive for increased productivity in the context of three significant industry drivers: shorter product lifecycles, more complexity, outsourcing...

Tau White Paper

Apr 24, 2001 | Mentor Graphics

Board-level circuits today routinely run at speeds of 100 MHz or more and are composed of dozens of complex interacting VLSI components. To design such circuits in a timely and correct manner it is necessary to pay close attention to circuit timing early in the design cycle. At fast clock speeds, managing component and interconnect propagation delay becomes a key aspect of circuit design. It is imperative that the critical paths on a circuit and the slack available for interconnect delay consumption be identified early, and drive subsequent stages in the design flow....

Micro Vias in Board Station

Apr 24, 2001 | Mentor Graphics

This paper reviews the possible implementations of the Micro Via Technology within the Mentor Graphic's Board Station environment, specifically within the Librarian, Layout and Fablink applications. In this context, the definition of a Micro Via is constrained to Board Station’s support of such technology and contains only generalized descriptions of the manufacturing processes that require Micro Vias....

FSM Cookbook

Apr 24, 2001 | Mentor Graphics

Tau models describe the timing and functional information of component interfaces. Timing information specifies the delay in placing values on output signals and the timing constraints (set-up/hold, pulse-width) on input signals of a component. Functional information, through a finite state machine (FSM), specifies when output signal values change, when input signal values are latched, and how output values are determined as a function of input values....

Autorouting Techniques for Mulitchip Modules

Apr 24, 2001 | John Cofield, Advanced Packaging Product Manager, Mentor Graphics Corporation

Many PCB designers are interested in taking advantage of Multichip Modules, but are unfamiliar with the technology. While the design process is very much the same, MCM manufacturing processes vary dramatically. MCM routing requirements are dictated by the manufacturing process and types of components. Components mounted on MCM substrates are predominantly, if not exclusively, bare chips. As a result, the component body and I/O pins are no longer constrained to industry standard pin counts and form factors as are packaged components......