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38 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2018 execute rapidly in parallel with schematic cap- ture, such that layout can commence with the highest confidence for first-pass success. More than 125 proprietary schematic integrity analy- sis checks are exhaustive, rapid, and power- and technology-aware. They are designed to identify both parametric errors and poor design practice and work with all major PCB design tools. On average, Xpedition schematic integrity analysis performs 400,000 checks per design. An example of the results after performing Xpedition schematic integrity analysis on a schematic are show in Figure 5. Applications Xpedition's schematic analysis technology is applicable to multiple needs within an engi- neering team's design operations. While most of this article emphasizes the importance of schematic verification during new product design, other applications include: • Existing product design: Sustaining exist- ing electronic designs can create a significant burden upon product design teams, particu- larly when field performance does not match expectations and business intent. Schematic integrity analysis can be performed on elec- tronic designs after they have been released into the market to improve the quality of the electronic design, increase yield, and decrease product returns. Schematic analysis can rap- idly assess problematic products that are exhibiting less-than-ideal behavior that nega- tive impacts production yields, in-warranty failure rates (MBTF), no-fault-found rates, and install/commissioning success rates. The pres- ence of latent design defects and marginalities in field-released products can produce degra- dation of operating performance, causing the design team to be distracted from isolating the hidden root cause of problems. It is common for such diagnoses to consume multiple weeks of investigation, much of which is avoidable via screening of the design's integrity. By mod- eling problematic products, schematic analy- sis can systemically identify latent defects and marginalities providing design teams with a comprehensive overview of where to look to diagnose any performance-limiting problems, in a fraction of the time and effort normally required. • Original design & manufacturing layout: The application of schematic integrity model- Figure 5: In this example, Xpedition schematic integrity analysis found 58 critical issues, 96 defects, and provided 70 warnings, far more than could ever be found with manual checking.