This invention relates to a CAD system for designing a printed wiring board, a printed wiring board design method, a printed wiring board design device, and a method and device for an EMC design, applicable to the CAD system.
Electronic equipment in recent years has advanced the progress of down sizing, high functionality and digitalization, which has entailed increase in unnecessary radiation noise exerting an influence on other electronic equipment of an electromagnetic wave radiated by the electronic equipment of interest, which has increasingly enhanced more and more a necessity for a measure to diminish the unnecessary radiation noise, whereas since there is a relationship of a trade-off between the measure to be taken and down sizing, EMC design has become technically more and more difficult coping therewith every year.
Various noise reduction designs have been studied: such as high frequency isolation of IC power supply wiring using an inductance element and a capacitance element on a digital circuit board easy to be a source to generate the unnecessary radiation noise and a strip structure of signal wiring.
Especially, since a bypass capacitor inserted between the power supply terminal and the GND terminal of a digital IC not only stabilizes a high frequency variation in a power supply voltage generated in company with a switching operation of IC by supplementing the variation with an accumulated charge, but also feeds back a high frequency component to the GND terminal of the IC to thereby play a role to confine high frequency noise in the neighborhood of the IC, the inserted bypass capacitance has been widely known as the most basic and important means in the unnecessary radiation noise reduction for a circuit board, which leads to proposals offered on a printed wiring board design device using many of schemes and tools concerning placement of a bypass capacitor and wiring.
For example, a proposal on an automatic placement, wiring devices offered in Patent document 1 in which a board is divided into plural wiring regions and not only are densities of existing components and wires leveled over the regions, being made balanced therebetween, but the shortest wiring length is also achieved, and besides, another proposal on an automatic placement scheme is offered in Patent document 2 in which a projection area of components and wires is minimized.
The design device, however, is extremely insufficient with respect to the unnecessary radiation noise reduction of a circuit board. The reason why is such that, in the actual board design, a necessity arises for considerations to be given to many of design items such as an operating frequency of IC, a thickness of a wiring layer or a wire and a capacity characteristic of a capacitor in addition to a distance between the IC and the bypass capacitor and a wiring length for reduction of EMC in order to reduce EMC.
Therefore, a work becomes indispensable that design data is deliberately examined based on a design rule obtained by organizing the items to be considered, which is difficult and extremely time consuming, having led to a problem of inability in implementing a sufficient EMC design in a limited design time.
There has been contrived a method as a measure for improvement on such a problem in which placement and wiring data for a bypass capacitor to be inputted to a CAD system used for a printed wiring board design is checked in real time, and if the data falls outside the allowable range, a warning message is displayed on a screen so that a designer is urged to improve the design to thereby confine the CAD data within the allowable range defined by the design rule. For example,
This method, however, has had difficulty, for example, optimally designing a placement position of a bypass capacitor and a wiring route since determination of the placement position of a bypass capacitor and a wiring route are conducted by a person at random in a range in which a design rule is observed, which causes a problem that a design quality of EMC is different according to an ability of a pattern designer in circumstances where a reduction level of EMC is different according to a placement position and a wiring route.
That is, since in a conventional method, a placement position of a bypass capacitor or the like and a wiring route is determined by a person at random within a range in which a design rule is observed, a problem has arisen that an EMC design quality is dependent on a pattern designer to thereby produce a variation in design quality with ease.
It is, accordingly, an object of the invention to provide a printed wiring board design method, a printed wiring board design device and a CAD system capable of designing a printed wiring board without a quality differential of design caused by a pattern designer.
A printed wiring board design method pertaining to the invention, in order to achieve the object, including the steps of: designing placement of and wiring for circuit components based on circuit information on a mounting surface of the board; excluding a placement region and a wiring region for the circuit components from the mounting surface to thereby calculate a placement and wiring enable region for an EMC component in which the EMC component can be placed and wiring can be laid down; and calculating the placement and wiring range for the EMC component based on an EMC design rule from the calculated placement and wiring enable region for the EMC component.
A printed wiring board design method pertaining to the invention can also further include the step of: evaluating placement of and wiring for the EC reduction component in the placement and wiring range based on allowances of design values of the items of the EMC design rule and weights set to the items.
According to a printed wiring board design method pertaining to the invention, since a placement and wiring range for an EMC component is calculated based on the EMC design rule, for example, placement of and wiring for a new bypass capacitor or the like can be implemented and a region satisfying restraint items from the design rule can be clearly displayed as a new input enable region on a CAD screen.
Besides, in the printed wiring board design method pertaining the invention, if placement of and wiring for the EMC component in the placement and wiring range is evaluated based on the allowances and the weights, the optimal placement of and wiring for the EMC component can be clearly shown to thereby enable EMC design for a stable printed wiring board to be realized a design quality of which is not dependent on a pattern designer.
According to the invention, therefore, there can be provided a printed wiring board design method, a printed wiring board design device and a CAD system capable of designing a printed wiring board without a quality differential of design caused by a pattern designer.
Description will be given of a printed wiring board design method of the embodiment below based on the flowchart of
Step S1
In step S1 of the printed wiring board design method of the embodiment, of large scale ICs, middle scale ICs, connectors (terminals) and components of an IC peripheral circuit, which are extracted based on information on circuit components, placement of the large scale ICs and the like (large size components) occupying a comparative large mounting area and the connectors (terminals), which are fixed components and placement positions of which are determined in advance is determined based on information on circuit wiring and terminal placement
Step S2
Then, in step S2, placement of the middle scale ICs (middle size components) and the components of an IC peripheral circuit (small size circuit components) are determined to determine a wiring pattern therefor. In step S1 and step S2, combined, there are determined a basic construction constructed of the large scale ICs, the middle scale ICs, the connectors (terminals) and the components of an IC peripheral circuit and a basic pattern.
Step S3
In step 3, a placement, wiring enable region for an EMC component are calculated based on the basic construction and the basic pattern that have been determined in steps S1 and S2. To be concrete, a region excluding a region occupied by the large scale ICs, the middle scale ICs, the connectors (terminals) and the components of an IC peripheral circuit, which have been determined in steps S1 and S2, and a region in which a wiring pattern is formed is calculated as a placement, wiring enable region for an EMC component.
Step S4
In step S4, an EMC component to be added is selected.
Step S5
In step S5, there is acquired circuit information necessary for placement and wiring of an EMC component on a signal frequency, a power supply voltage and others.
Step S6
In Step 6, a range is calculated in which an EMC component can be placed with reference to an EMC design rule.
For example, in a case where an EMC design rule shown in Table 1 exists when bypass a capacitor 9 is inserted between a power supply terminal 3 and a GND terminal 5 of IC1 (see
Step S7
In step S7, a region in which an EMC component cannot be placed because of restraints on mounting or board fabrication is excluded from a design rule based placement, wiring enable range of an EMC component that has been calculated in step S6, to thereby calculate a mounting and design rule based placement, wiring enable range.
For example, in a case where restraints are placed on mounting or board fabrication of components shown in Table 2, a range 10 mm or less from the end of IC indicated with a reference numeral 19 and a range 0.1 mm or less from a component terminal and an existing wire are excluded from a design rule based placement, wiring enable range that has been calculated in Step 6 to thereby calculate a mounting and design rule based placement, wiring enable range 20. In the above description, the term “restraints on mounting or board fabrication” is used, but it is needles to say that both restraints on mounting and board fabrication may be combined as those applied to the design.
Step S8
In step S8, for example, placement candidate points 21 are set in a lattice in the mounting and design rule based placement, wiring enable range 20 that has been calculated in step S7 (
A spacing between adjacent placement candidate points 21 is determined giving consideration to a size, shape and others of an EMC component to be placed.
Step S9
In step S9, the EMC component is temporarily placed so that the center of the component coincides with a placement candidate point that has been set in step S8 and thereafter, a candidate point is extracted so that the entire EMC component falls within the mounting and design rule based placement, wiring enable range 20 (narrowing candidate points down) and the EMC component is placed at one of the placement candidate points into which the candidate points are narrowed down.
To be concrete, it is determined, as shown in
Note that in
Step S10
In step S10, necessary wiring is provided to the EMC component that has been placed in step S9.
Step S11
In step S11, a placement margin of the EMC component that has been placed in step S9 and a wiring margin of wires that has been laid down in step S10 are calculated in each item of restraints on the design rule and the mounting.
The term “margin” means allowance of a restraint imposed on the design rule and mounting.
For example, in a case of a placement distance of the item 1 of Table 1, if a spacing between the IC power supply terminal and a capacitor is 16 mm, the margin in this case is 4 mm relative to the restraint of 20 mm or less and in a case of placement prohibited range of the item 1 of Table 2, if a distance from an end of IC to the EMC component is 15 mm, a margin in this case is 5 mm relative to the restraint of placement prohibition of 10 mm or less.
Step S12
An evaluation score of wiring and an evaluation score of placement are calculated based on weighted data calculated in each of the restraints on the design rule and mounting and a margin that has been calculated in step S11.
For example, an evaluation score of wiring (the sum total of evaluation scores of wires) is given as the sum total of evaluation scores of the items of the restraints on a design rule for wiring and mounting, and the evaluation score of wiring (the sum total of evaluation scores of wires) is given as the sum total of evaluation scores of the items of the restraints on the design rule for placement and mounting.
Step S13
In Step S13, it is determined whether or not evaluation is repeated while altering wiring (wiring pattern design) and if the process is terminated, it move ahead to step S14, while if the process is not terminated, it returns to step S10, where a wiring pattern design is altered and a process from step S10 to step S13 is repeated.
For example, by repeating the process from step S10 to step S13, evaluation is conducted on all possible wiring patterns including temporarily placed lattice points, which enables selection of a wiring candidate to be completed.
Note that since even in a case of a great number of the wiring candidates, the number is finite, evaluation can be done on all wiring candidates.
Step 14
In step S14, it is determined whether or not placement is altered and evaluation is repeated thereon, and if no placement is altered, the process advances to step S15, while if placement is altered and evaluation is repeated thereon, the process returns to step S9, where placement points are altered and a process from step S10 to step S14 is repeated.
In this process, for example, when evaluation is completed on all the lattice points, selection of a wiring candidate is completed.
Steps S15 and S16
In step S15, one candidate point is displayed among evaluated placement and wiring plans, and in step S16, in a case where the placement and wiring plan that has been displayed in step S15 is determined, a placement and wiring design for an EMC component is completed, or alternatively, in a case where a different candidate is selected, the process returns to step S15, where a different placement and wiring plan on which evaluation has been done is displayed, and in Step S16, the evaluated plan is confirmed.
For example, in steps S15 and S16, a placement and wiring plan with the highest evaluation scores as the first candidate is first displayed, it is determined whether or not the point is selected as the optimal and if the point is selected as the optimal, placement and wiring design for an EMC component is completed.
If the optimal candidate point has a fault in selection because of the presence of items to which no consideration is given in the design rule and the like, which leads to a conclusion that the optimal candidate point is not decided, the process returns to step S15, where the second candidate point with the second highest evaluation point is displayed, and in step S16, it is confirmed whether or not the second candidate is the optimal.
Besides, if the second candidate point still has a fault, a process of steps S15 and S16 is repeated.
By repeating the process of steps S15 and S16, the optimal candidate point is selected as a final one.
Note that in step S15, for example, the candidate points may be, as shown in
Contour lines in a case of a placement angle of 0 degree are shown as in
In the invention, candidate points may be displayed as a contour diagram in which they are classified by color according to evaluation scores instead of contour lines.
In the invention, as described above, an optimal evaluation score distribution can be displayed as contour lines or a contour diagram based on the evaluation points at the respective lattice points.
Positions and a range with good integrated scores shown in the contour lines or the contour diagram can be displayed, for example, as recommended positions for an EMC component such as a bypass capacitor as far as no specific restraint exists (for example, no specific restraint item is inputted), thereby enabling automation of designation of the optimal point to be effected.
An evaluation score of each of the items calculated based on a margin or the like can be held as information for design check for an EMC component or can also be used so as to be reflected in updating of an EMC design rule or updating of weight data for EMC components of the same kind.
In the invention, as described above, it is possible to decide the optimal placement and wiring position in a placement, wiring enable region satisfying an EMC design rule for an EMC component such as a bypass capacitor and restraint items on board fabrication, thereby enabling EMC design of a stable printed wiring board having a design quality without depending on a designer to be realized.
Detailed description will be given of a margin and weighted data below.
(Weight)
In the embodiment, for example, weights are individually determined and obtained as data for respective restraint items of component placement and wiring in an EMC reduction design rule, as shown in Table 2, based on whether or not there was a record of causing an EMC problem associated with the items in the past such as a signal frequency and a current value of IC connected, and on whether or not a board design is easy.
Note that, in Table 3, the presence or absence of an EMC problem in the past means a case where a problem related to EMC occurred in a circuit using the same IC or a similar IC in the past.
As to easiness of application, a higher weight is assigned in a case where an EMC component was applied to IC of the same kind in the past.
(Margin)
A pass/fail criterion which serves as a condition in an EMC design rule is decided by grasping an EMI attenuation (or increase) at a position apart by, for example, 3 m or 10 m by theoretical calculation or an experiment, and an EMC reduction effect varies, for example, as shown in
In a case where, as shown in
In a case where, as a design value is increased to a value higher than a pass/fail criterion, an effect of EMC reduction shows a tendency to increase contrary to
(Evaluation Score)
Evaluation score of each of items is obtained by the following equation (1) based on a weight and a margin obtained as described above.
Evaluation Score=Basic Score (for example, 10 points)×(1+Margin/Criterion)×Weight Equation (1)
, wherein it is needless to say that the basic points is not limited to 10 points and has only to be set so as to obtain a proper figure as each evaluation score and an integrated evaluation score that is easy to be evaluated when evaluation is performed.
In the embodiment having been described above, a placement, wiring enable range for a bypass capacitor has been conventionally determined by a person at random within a range in which a design rule is observed can be automatically displayed based on a design rule.
Besides, it can be determined whether or not placement, wiring candidate positions in lattice in a placement, wiring enable range satisfies a design rule, and the optimal position can also be determined by calculating an optimality evaluation score weighted in each of restraint items as shown in the flow of
According to the invention, the most excellent placement, wiring position in the placement, wiring enable range is displayed as a recommended design plan to thereby not only enable automation of placement, wiring design for an EMC component such as a bypass capacitor to be realized, but also enable application to placement, wiring design for components other than an EMC component to be ensured.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2004-028840 | Feb 2004 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/JP05/01589 | 2/3/2005 | WO | 11/7/2005 |