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58 The PCB Design Magazine • July 2016 and verification of electrical and physical con- straints within one environment, eliminating the need for separate databases, and simplify- ing a complex constraint entry process while improving design accuracy. 3. Apart from ECAD-MCAD collaboration and EMC verification tools, tight integration with Valor NPI for concurrent DFM validation and optimized hand-off to manufacturing. This ensures that all manufacturing data is includ- ed and synchronized, and that the engineer's design intent is maintained. Additional, Valor NPI provides concurrent DfM analysis during the design process, applying almost 700 manu- facturing rules, to the design, ensuring compli- ance and minimum revision spins in manufac- turing. With the release of the product creation platform, PADS has included the FloTHERM XT option that utilizes a powerful solver and mesher for fast and effective electronics cool- ing simulations, working with both MCAD and PADS design flows. Full geometric and non- geometric SmartParts and library capabilities provide access to a full set of the most popular components for fast and accurate model cre- ation. You can easily define, solve, and analyze results using parametric variations of geometry, attributes (e.g., material, thermal), and solution parameters to significantly enhance the design optimization process. The tight integration with PCB layout re- duces time consuming data translation and pre- vents costly errors. Board or component layout can be easily modified for position, size, orien- tation, shape, and modeling level prior to im- port into FloTHERM. Insufficient cooling can result in poor reli- ability, schedule delays, and increased produc- tion costs. This is especially relevant in today's high-performance devices where components are densely packed into ever-smaller enclosures. Proper thermal management, of the entire de- THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENT ENGINEER Figure 3: IR drop analysis identifies excessive current density.