Mentor Graphics introduces new Xpedition Package Integrator process

     Mentor Graphics has announced the launch of its new Xpedition Package Integrator process, the industry's broadest solution for integrated circuit (IC), package and printed circuit board (PCB) co-design and optimization. Package Integrator solutions automatically plan, assemble, and optimize today's complex multi-chip packages. It uses a unique virtual chip model concept to truly achieve IC to package collaborative optimization. To support early marketing level research for planned new products, users can now plan, assemble, and optimize complex systems with minimal source data. The new Package Integrator process enables design teams to achieve faster, more efficient physical wiring paths and seamless tool integration, enabling rapid prototyping and advancing the production process.

     The solution ensures that ics, packages, and PCBS are optimized for each other to reduce packaging substrate and PCB costs by efficiently reducing layer count, optimizing interconnect paths, and streamlining/automating control of the design process. The Xpedition Package Integrator product also provides the industry's first formal process for ball grid array (BGA) ball mapping planning and optimization. The process is defined according to user rules and is based on the concept of "smart pins". In addition, a groundbreaking multimodal connection management system combining hardware description Language (HDL), spreadsheets, and schematics provides cross-domain pin mapping and system-level cross-domain logic validation.

     "Companies are recognizing that without the ability to co-design ics, packages, and boards, it will not be possible to design the best systems in a timely manner," TechSearch International, Inc. President and founder E. Jan

     Vardaman said. "Combining key parameters derived from thermal and electromagnetic modeling is critical to meeting performance targets." In our rapidly growing market segments, automating this process is essential to meet product development and launch timelines. Mentor's Xpedition Package Integrator tool is a breakthrough product in the design process."