Sentinel-PI

Sentinel-PI is the industry’s first and only fully integrated IC-aware power integrity solution for IC package, System-in-Package (SiP), and PCB designs. Sentinel-PI offers a new 3D full-wave package and board power/ground network extraction and power integrity analysis engine with the ability to perform DC (static), AC (frequency domain), and transient (dynamic) simulations from a single environment. In addition, Sentinel-PI seamlessly integrates Chip Power Model (CPM) for IC-aware IC package and PCB co-analysis.

Power: A System-Wide Challenge

Power is a system-wide challenge, not just an IC related issue. More and more package and board designers are concerned with the impact of IC power and noise on their design.

Though power is a system wide issue, competing requirements of IC, I/O, and package / board designers have made it difficult to provide a comprehensive solution. IC designers require a solution that can manage the complexity of millions of cells while providing results within a reasonable amount of time, while package and PCB designers need a solution that can handle frequency-domain models, not just time-domain models as used in the IC design space. Dynamic noise from IC, package, and board are coupled throughout power delivery network of the system and every component must be considered when analyzing system-wide power integrity.

In addition to competing tools requirements, IC and package / system designers are further separated by their domain knowledge and functional organization. A solution that bridges the gap between the IC-centric world and package/system world cannot impose a significant change to either team. For package/board designers, the IC information presented needs to be in a familiar form for the co-analysis solution to be effective.

Sentinel-PI provides a fully integrated chip-package-system power integrity solution that combines a compact chip power model that can handle the complexity of the IC and a 3D extraction and analysis engine that is able to support broadband, full-wave models of the package and boards. In addition, CPM is represented in SPICE - a format that is familiar to package and board designers.

3D Full-wave Engine

Sentinel-PI delivers a new 3D full-wave electromagnetic (EM) solver for highly accurate power integrity analysis of today’s complex package and PCB designs.

Most of today’s package and PCB power analysis tools employ 2D or 2.5D methods, thus limiting the accuracy and the scope of application. Sentinel-PI’s 3D full-wave engine accurately models complex power/ground nets with 3D features such cut-out, power/ground island. It delivers unsurpassed accuracy for power analysis of complex package and system designs with minimal impact on performance and turnaround time.

DC, AC, and Transient Analysis

Sentinel-PI provides unified DC, AC, and transient co-analysis engine. It supports resistance check and static- IR-drop analysis, frequency-domain simulation including impedance analysis of multi-port power delivery network of the chip, package, and board, and time-domain dynamic voltage drop analysis from a single user environment. Sentinel-PI’s fast and efficient Finite Element (FEM) mesh generation technology and its ability to analyze multiple power and ground nets in a single run enables the designers to quickly obtain the most accurate power analysis results.

IC-aware Package and PCB Power Analysis

Sentinel-PI seamlessly integrates CPM for IC-aware Package and PCB co-analysis. Sentinel-PI supports automated physical connectivity between the CPM and the package, thus eliminating the problematic and time-consuming model exchange method of manually connecting the CPM to the package model.

By embedding CPM, Sentinel-PI allows package and board designers to perform power analysis from early in the design flow and throughout the entire process. During early design, Sentinel-PI enables accurate and predictable package selection, as well as power pad to signal pin ratio and package decap optimizations. Later in the flow, Sentinel-PI allows package/PCB designers to accurately run power integrity analysis of the package and the PCB by including the IC power delivery network behavior, and diagnosing potential chip-package LC resonance issues, as well as validating package/board dynamic voltage drop margin.

Sentinel-PI: Global Chip-Package-System Co-analysis Solution for Power Integrity

Sentinel is a comprehensive power integrity solution for package and PCB designers. It combines the chip's core switching on power delivery network and 3D full-wave package / PCB models in a single environment for accurate IC-package co-analysis. With Sentinel-PI, package and system designers can mitigate design failure risks, reduce overall system cost, and improve productivity.

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