New Signal Man Points the Way at Advanced Layout Solutions
If you would like to know more about signal integrity, contact Chris Halford [mailto:e-mail protected from spam bots] via email or on +44 (0) 118 9702109. To find out more about Advanced Layout Solution, visit the ALS website at www.alspcb.com or contact Ian Ladds [mailto:e-mail protected from spam bots] via email or call on +44 (0) 118 9702100.
(PRWEB) January 27, 2005 -- As PCB designs become more complex, signal
integrity is becoming more and more important for designers and manufacturers.
Aware of this, Advanced Layout Solutions, the UK's No.1 PCB design bureau, has
recruited Chris Halford to help support their customers who are finding that
signal integrity is increasingly becoming a concern within their PCB
designs.
Nigel Barkus, Director of Advanced Layout Solutions, commented:
"As a leading PCB design bureau, we have been at the forefront of the
implementation of various new technologies. We had recognised some time ago that
signal integrity was becoming a major issue for a number of our customers but
how to address this was more of a problem. It could not be resolved simply by
buying additional software. It required the combination of a high level of
experience as well as class leading tools, so we were very pleased when Chris
decided to join us. He brings his real-world engineering experiences into the
heart of our business and along with his knowledge of the Cadence SPECCTRAQuest™
SI Expert toolset, allows ALS to be perfectly positioned to offer it's customers
solutions to their signal integrity problems."
The SPECCTRAQuest™ SI
Expert solution from Cadence provides the signal integrity engineer with the
ability to explore, simulate, predict and characterise high-speed signal
integrity requirements for a PCB design, developing graphical
topology-constraint sets that can be used as an electrical blueprint to drive
the physical PCB design process and measure the final signal integrity
performance of a PCB layout.
After more than 10 years high-speed hardware
design experience, Chris joins ALS from 3Dlabs Ltd, a Creative Technology
company specialising in high-end graphics. He is obviously excited about his new
role, "Having been an ALS customer for five years, I know first-hand the level
of layout expertise that exists within this company. Both myself and ALS
recognised that it has become a necessity to have engineering competence within
today’s layout bureaus."
Chris went on to add, "Over the years, as
signalling rates have rocketed, PCB design has been transformed from a drawing
office activity to a critical part of system-level electrical engineering; to
design a high-speed digital layout without competence in both can lead to
failure. The combination of layout designer and SI engineer is already working
very well. The designers produce robust, physical interconnect that is easy to
manufacture and test. We can now analyse the same interconnect in our signal
integrity tools and assess the impact the layout topologies and parasitics are
having on performance. It's my job to ensure the PCB interconnect has adequate
bandwidth to faithfully reproduce our customer's signals with minimal
distortion. The resulting design is usually a compromise between these two
ideals, giving our customers a board that is both high in performance and cost
effective to fabricate."
When Chris, originally from
Kingston-Upon-Thames, isn’t simulating PCBs he is usually busy entertaining his
3 year-old, Rebecca, and 4 month-old, James. When he escapes, he can often be
found jumping out of aircraft above Salisbury Plain(!).
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb202005.htm