Leveraging FPGA in PCB System Designs

FPGA devices create compelling business drivers generating a tidal wave of FPGA adoption for the implementation of system PCB designs. Obviously, the time to market advantages and capacity/performance characteristics of FPGA devices have delivered on the promise for a viable alternative to more capital resource intensive custom IC/ASIC solutions as well as a successful consolidation vehicle for standard “off the shelf” components in system design creation.

Power Integrity in Systems Design: Part 1

This paper discusses the fundamental requirements of power integrity (PI), and the most important concept used in PI, the network impedance. It answers the questions commonly asked by digital designers on how a power delivery network (PDN) is represented, how PDN impedance is generally defined, what the target impedance is and its effective range, and the factors affecting impedance analysis. The paper also addresses the contributions of IC current, package inductance, and on-die capacitance to PDN impedance analysis.

The Universal PCB Design Grid System

This paper reviews one of the single most important, but sometimes overlooked or taken for granted, aspects of the electronics industry – The PCB Design Grid System. Mixing PCB Design Layout units will compromise perfection every time. PCB Design perfection starts with building CAD library parts and quickly moves to part placement, via fanout and trace routing challenges. Outputting data for machine production can be extremely complex or very simple based on the PCB Design Layout units that were used throughout the PCB design process.

Three driving forces are radically changing CAD library construction. The first is lead-free solder. The next is metric units. And lastly is "component manufacturer chaos." This term describes component manufacturers who no longer follow JEDEC packaging standards and are leading the way for new component package development. It seems as though the constraints of standard package data have been thrown out the window and new unique electronic device packages are emerging on the market at light speed. These challenges will continue to impact CAD library development and maintenance as we move forward.

Parts Collaboration within The Sunstone ECOsystem

Sunstone Circuits’ technological collaboration with Digi‐Key Corp. and NXP Semiconductor provides Sunstone PCB123 CAD users access to ready‐made, certified parts symbols from NXP. Not only is sufficient information provided to ensure accurate physical design, but the collaboration also ensures efficient design with component availability and pricing information. Within the Sunstone ECOsystemSM, these new functional elements provide the end user with a turnkey level of convenience and accuracy, even when working on prototypes and early engineering projects.

The white paper can be downloaded here.