With the latest trend in the microelectronic industry leaning towards compact designs operating at extremely high frequencies, unintended EM coupling becomes stronger, more complex, and harder to predict, often dominating circuit behavior. PeakView® provides advanced EM isolation analysis capabilities to evaluate how effectively structures are isolated and minimize unwanted coupling. In addition, PeakView® integrates large-scale EM models into circuit simulations, enabling comprehensive EM isolation simulation to assess overall circuit performance.
The EM isolation noise floor defines the lowest coupling value that EM tools can capture without losing numerical accuracy or physical meaning. PeakView® achieves up to -130dB as the maximum EM isolation noise floor supporting accurate EM isolation design and signoff workflow from the device-level to the circuit-level and the system-level.
PeakView®’s Tools for EM Isolation Analysis & Simulation
- EM isolation analysis represents the assessment of how different structures (passives, interconnects, etc) are isolated to prevent unwanted signal coupling or interference.
- EM isolation simulation incorporates the interaction of multiple structures to circuit simulations to evaluate the overall performance (functionality, gain, bandwidth, etc).
Device-Level EM Isolation Analysis
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- Built-in formula such as coupling factor (K) and customized formulas based on y-, z-, and s-parameters.
- EM/Visualization Post-Processing for analysis of the structures under different conditions: differential port, common mode, etc.
- Log-scale EM visualization of induced current density for early floor planning based on aggressor/aggressed structures.
- Parametric sweep of the separation between EM devices for the floor planning assessment between passives.
- EM Design with shielding structures based on PeakView®’s extensive library of add-ons dynamic Pcircuits as well as the support of native NT_N/BFMOAT layers.
Device-Level EM Isolation Analysis
- Evaluation of EM effects of the Power Delivery Network (PDN) on circuit performance, supporting unlimited number of ports, flexible meshing, and advanced backannotation techniques.
- EM Prototyping™ for coupling assessment with EM models backannotated to the circuit simulation test bench through multiple hierarchy levels.
- RF Isolation simulation in compact RF designs to assess the EM coupling of interconnections to actives as well as MOMCaps underneath coils.
System-Level EM Isolation Analysis
- The latest applications for high frequency demands the EM simulations of complete circuit blocks (e.g. VCO, interconnects, etc), aided by PeakView®’s flexible 3D meshing techniques.
- HFD™ accounts for the EM coupling between coils and critical interconnects as well as the EM simulation of the real current return path from the final layout with backannotated results to DSPF files.
- PeakView®’s EM co-simulation solution enables the integration of multiple process technologies, enabling the EM isolation simulation between processes for 2.5D, 3DIC and IC-Packaging systems
EM Isolation Concerns
- EM isolation analysis and simulation provides physical insight to validate whether layout structures truly prevent harmful coupling as design scales down.
- Accurate EM isolation analysis requires a low noise floor to detect weak but critical coupling and broad frequency coverage to capture frequency-dependent effects like resonances and substrate coupling.
- Designers normally divide-and-conquer to analyze the EM interaction between structures, however; EM domain definition may affect the interpretation of the results delivered by the EM solver.
- PeakView®’s multiple tools for EM isolation analysis and simulation accurately capture the subtle effects that may arise from incomplete layout definition for studying EM isolation.
- Sensitive EM isolation analysis/simulation require not only an EM tool with great accuracy and noise floor but also sufficient layout input to avoid counterintuitive results.
- Some of the counterintuitive result could be observed as an increase in the EM coupling with an increase in the separation between structures at low coupling levels.
- Lorentz™ delivers an in-depth description of best practices to avoid counterintuitive results during EM isolation simulation and analysis in the document LD23021.
References
- LD23021_EM Isolation Analysis and Simulation in High-speed IC Designs: Basic Concepts and Real Device-Circuit-System Practices
- LD22880_EM Isolation Analysis in Real mmWave Designs from Counterintuitive to Realistic EM Insight and Models
- LD21678_PeakView Combo Cell Application Note
- LD20728_EM Ground and Boundary Conditions in mmWave IC Designs
- LD20052_PeakView EM Isolation Analysis and Noise Floor
- LD14991_PeakView Advanced LEM for BFMOAT/NTN Effects
For Application Notes requests, please contact: support@lorentzsolution.com