Complex system blade wins Leadership Award
Ian McCormick and Jim Rose from GE Fanuc (UK) have won the military and aerospace category of Mentor Graphics' Technology Leadership Award programme. Their winning design realised a system blade for radar, sonar, signal intelligence and image processing.
The complex pcb was designed using Mentor Graphics' Expedition Enterprise for schematic capture and board layout, and FloTherm for thermal analysis.
The primary challenges in the design were signal and power integrity, reliability and manufacturability, while keeping costs within budget. The final board incorporated a 3+12+3 stackup with extensive use of high density interconnect. The board comprised connections for more than 22,000 pins and more than 4500 separate components. More than 80% of the nets run at 3.125GHz.
Seen with the award are Jim Rose, left, and Ian McCormick.
