Eric Bogatin, Signal Integrity Journal Technical Editor
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Eric Bogatin is Technical Editor at Signal Integrity Journal and the Dean of the Teledyne LeCroy Signal Integrity Academy. Additionally, he is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado - Boulder in the ECEE Dept. Eric improves the signal to noise ratio by sorting through all of the information available and finding the best quality content to publish on signalintegrityjournal.com.

EMC/EMI

Eric Bogatin is Technical Editor at Signal Integrity Journal and a Professor at University of Colorado-Boulder in the ECEE dept. Additionally, he is a Fellow with Teledyne LeCroy. Eric improves the signal to noise ratio by sorting through all of the information available and finding the best quality content to publish on signalintegrityjournal.com.

Winner of the Coolest Product Demo at the 2017 EMC Symposium

August 15, 2017

Eric Bogatin

SimYOG, a new start-up spin-off from the India Institute of Science, cofounded by Dipanjan Gope, an Assistant Professor and a cofounder of Nimbic, which was acquired by Mentor Graphics, a Siemens Company, wins hands down for the coolest product shown at the 2017 IEEE EMC Conference.

Their Compliance-Scope product is a Virtual EMI/EMC laboratory where designers can validate and improve their hardware by leveraging a 3D full wave electromagnetic simulation tool using method of moments. What makes their product so cool is the 3D, virtual reality interface display.

I got a chance to experience it first hand, as Figure 1 documents. Once the fields are solved, I could navigate through the 3D structure, flying though via fields, down stripline traces, and through narrow gaps between planes like a miniature eagle, looking for current hot spots or leaking fields.

Figure 1. A willing volunteer (me) entering the virtual world of the multilayer circuit board.

Examples of a few of the scenes I could see in stunning 3D are show in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Three different scenes of my journey through the guts of circuit board traces, some with their current densities color coded.

While I think the coolest feature of their Compliance-Scope is the new perspective of being embedded inside a PCB structure and able to see it from the inside out, Prof Gope says the real innovation is in the solver technology. In most 3D tools, if a small change is made in the geometry, such as tweaking a pad, or changing a clearance hole, the entire problem needs to be re-simulated.

In Compliance-Scope, the meshing is changed incrementally. This means most of the mesh and solution space from the initial set up can be re-used, saving computation time.

Gope adds that his team is implementing “diagnostic” technology, as artificial intelligence. It will perform a sensitivity analysis and determine which features in the design most strongly affect some feature in the fields or currents, or transient response. He says this should enable Compliance -Scope to be a more efficient debug tool.

I’m hoping to experience the “Signal crossing a gap” ride at a future EDI CON.