Optimizing for RF Noise & EMI/EMC
In an increasingly mobile and wireless world, on-chip noise and EMI is quickly becoming a major design criteria in the development of SoCs. Power grid noise presents an increasingly challenging problem. As fabrication geometries scale to 40nm and below, any design will experience steeper current spikes due to the faster switching rates. This leads to higher levels of noise; in particular in the RF range. Years of research and practical experience has shown that the power noise from digital switching is impacting key performance parameters in mixed-signal and RF products.
A range of purely digital designs are also challenged with regards to noise – in particular in the automotive and mobile segments – due to strict EMI/EMC requirements. FloorDirector effectively addresses these challenges, by allowing designers to set optimization targets directly as frequency envelopes in the noise spectrum.
Areas of Application
By nature, any wireless design contains a solid portion of highly noise sensitive analog circuitry. As the evolution of semiconductor processes leads to smaller single-chip integration, and the amount of digital processing, as well as the processing speed, increases, the shielding of RF and mixed-signal parts from the digital noise aggressors is becoming a higher priority issue. While special measures are already taken during physical design implementation in such designs, such as adding an abundant mass of decap and expensive deep N-well isolation, the increasing digital noise makes it ever harder to tweak out the last dB of noise rejection. Businesses value relies on years of best layout practices, in the hands of senior designers, who need to secure the physical implementation of the IC by adding a wider and wider safety margin.
Designing ICs for automotive and mobile devices presents particular EMI challenges, due to strict regulations and requirements from the systems in which they operate, e.g. for safety, RF compatibility, etc. Reducing chip-level Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) within the existing design flows, to achieve Electromagnetic Compliance (EMC), is a time and resource consuming task. While there are ways to analyze and estimate EMI effects, it is often a matter of trial and error, measuring on fabricated chips. Even skilled design teams have needed to rely on over-compensating with large margins in the physical implementation of the power delivery network, then tape out and hope for the best when the chips return from manufacturing months later.
FloorDirector is the only commercially available, industry strength tool that provides an automated approach to efficiently reduce EMI and RF-noise early in the design flow, in a systematic and controlled manner.
Frequency Domain Optimization
FloorDirector’s Frequency Domain Optimization (FDO) feature is empowering IC designers to actively shape the power noise signature of digital circuits. Using FDO, designers can specify a precise frequency range in the noise spectrum, performing an automatic optimization which reduces power noise in that particular range.
Targeting your noise problem directly in the frequency spectrum.
With the introduction of FDO, FloorDirector offers a novel approach to the problems faced by RF/wireless and mobile/automotive design teams. FloorDirector operates directly in the frequency spectrum of the digital power noise, producing better solutions that will yield the best IC performance on key parameters in these industry segments.
FloorDirector offers mission critical advantages:
- FloorDirector noise improvements are truly complementary to existing noise reduction methods (on-chip physical-level filtering), as FloorDirector solves the root cause of the problem instead of patching up the effects of the problem.
- FloorDirector allows for fast development, offering fast, short iterations compared to using physical sign-off tools and manual bug fixing.
- FloorDirector enables optimizing the design in the implementation phase, allowing for improved design productivity: faster turn-around-time, better product performance and fewer re-spins.
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