CR-5000 Lightning - Zuken Helps Companies Improve Competitiveness by Delivering Low Effort High-Speed Design

Kazuhiro Kariya, Zuken’s Chief Technical Officer comments on the rationale behind the new functionality in CR-5000 Lightning 12.0. “Delivering market leading products not only demands that design software solutions have the capability to deal with high-density, high-speed boards; the solutions also need to enable designers to deliver within record times. By providing automated functionality and intelligent features for improved ease of use, Zuken is directly helping companies to reduce their design cycle times. In addition, we have continued our strategy to open the access of our cutting-edge technology to a broader segment of users by improving our cross tool integration within the entire CR-5000 design solution.”

Shortening design cycles with new ease of use functions

Impedance control is essential in high-speed design; in response Zuken has introduced a new graphical layer stack editor, featuring the ability to intelligently define multi-layer impedance templates for both single ended and differential signals. By applying these templates to groups of signals, the routing tools will automatically calculate the values during the routing process, allowing users to control impedance efficiently in both manual and automatic routing.

CR-5000 Lightning now supports interactive and automatic trombone lengthening, with dynamic push-aside, valuable for meeting matched route length constraints in tight spaces. And in alignment with Zuken’s strategy to unify functionality across the CR-5000 environment, all interactive, intelligent lengthening functionality of CR-5000 Lightning 12.0 is also available in CR-5000 Board Designer, the core layout tool within the CR-5000 design solution.

To reduce routing time within the Dragon Autorouter, The Routing Consultant which identifies potential routing blockers now includes more checks and provides suggested solutions. In the intelligent routing strategy generation, enhancements have been made to boost routing completion and constraint obedience.
To optimize signal integrity, electrical performance needs to be analysed by sweeping various design parameters simultaneously. Parameter sweep enhancements allow users to view and compare sweep result waveforms, making it much easier to make important design decisions.

The introduction of new ease-of-use features relating to Signal Integrity (SI) simulation, Power Integrity (PI) and EMI analysis have extended the usage of such tools within the entire CR-5000 design flow, helping designers to deliver right-first-time. For example, simulation model assignment for SI analysis, and options handling and results management in PI and EMI analysis have been simplified.