Fidus delivers Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Layout design services supported by high speed Signal Integrity (SI) consulting. An SI foundation is essential for high speed PCB layout to increase design quality and reduce cost, risk, and time to market. It applies to all types of PCBs, especially those with high operating frequencies. SI analysis delivers optimum layer stackup and material, component placement, and routing topologies. Further, post-route SI verification augments formal layout review with quantitative results for waveform integrity, cross talk, power integrity, etc. Every PCB is unique and often the need to customize guidelines is required. Working closely with our customers, we assess their specific PCB layout challenges ranging from low cost commercial products to the most complex products with high speed busses. Averaging close to 20 years’ experience, our experts are leaders in the PCB and SI community.

• PCB Expertise:
  • High Density Interconnect (HDI) – micro via, buried/partial via, via-in-pad, fine-line
  • Impedance control – single ended, differential pair, edge coupled or broad side 
  • PCB characteristics – FR4, hybrid materials, flex, typical IPC standards, RoHS compliant materials
  • Timing – clock, bus relative propagation delay matching including pin delays
  • Power –Optimized distribution by including current carrying capacity of copper, vias and pins
  • RF/Analogue – Signal Integrity driven and/or manufacturer specified
  • Noise reduction – Cross Talk reduction using parallelism on same or adjacent layers
  • DFM – conformance to IPC standards, familiar with a variety of PCB manufacturers’ requirements
  • DFT – standard or custom test jig for in-circuit or bare board testing

• Signal Integrity Expertise:
  • Layer stack-up and net topology design
  • Pre-, during , and post-route, high-speed SI analysis and simulation for reducing signal reflections, increasing timing margins, reducing crosstalk, enhancing power integrity through cost effective decoupling design, simultaneous switching noise (SSN) reduction, and, reducing conducted and radiated emissions

• Mechanical Expertise:
  • ECAD/DXF – PCB constraints driven by mechanical designer translated to PCB design
  • Electronic packaging – rack frame, harsh environment
  • Analysis – strength of materials and thermal analysis available
  • Types of machining – bent metal, milling, molding
  • Formats –  AutoCAD (DWG/DXF), Inventor (DXF/IGES/STEP)
  • Product Design – integrated PCB and mechanical design ability

Download the Fidus PCB Layout & Signal Integrity Overview

Mechanical Packaging Integrated PCB Mechanical Design Design enclosure to meet specifications outlined by customer and conformances required for the product Thermal and stress analysis and selection of appropriate materials and finishes	Assembly and manufacturing   mWave Link
PCB Design Layout High-Speed Electrically-Constrained Design Electrical constraint driven routing Building constraints into manager as specified by SI and/or engineering Supply SI critical route for simulation Work with PCB manufacturers to meet all IPC or other requirements for fabrication	PCB SI Analysis PCB Signal Integrity PCB – level modeling and constraint management Creation of topology templates and routing guidelines Pre- and Post route simulation

Project Examples Include:

• 54 Mbps WiFi radio, 802.3 Ethernet protocol, 24GHz band
• Integrated digital antenna array for WiMAX®, UMTS and LTE
• 1066  Mbps DDR2, and 1600 Mbps DDR3 Evaluation Platform
• 20 GHz PCB for ASIC Evaluation Platform
• WiFi, Zigbee, AIS and 26 GHz Radio modules
• 11.3 Gbps and 10G Base KR Backplane Layout
• Number of PCB layouts involving 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, 100 MHz multi-drop SDRAM interface, USB 2.0, HDI, HyperTransport, Infiniband, RapidIO®, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, RLDRAM, GigE, XAUI, PCI Express Gen. 2, 10G Base KR

Simulation Software Tools:
Fidus maintains licences for and has experience with the following tools:

• Ansoft HFSS
• Ansoft Designer
• Cadence Allegro PCB SI (SPECCTRAQuest)
• Cadence PSPICE
• Synopsys HSPICE
• Mentor Graphics HyperLynx
• Allegro Expert / Cadence
• Powerpcb / Mentor
• Blazerouter / Mentor
• PCAD / Altium
• Orcad Layout / Cadence
• Protel
• Autocad / Autodesk
• Inventor / Autodesk

From targeted consulting to turn-key design, Fidus helps you get your product to market.

• System architecture to board design, circuit simulation, PCB layout, schematics and gerbers
• Component & system characterization, measured or simulated including full S-parameters, gain & noise figure optimization
• Fully documented Design Validation & Functional Testing

Want to learn more? Have questions? Call us toll-free in North America at +1.866.883.4387 or at +1.613.828.0063. You can also email us at info@fidus.com. To find the Fidus representative nearest you, view our sales network.