Engineering Services

Signal Integrity Simulation

With Mentor's HyperLynx or Cadence's Sigrity tools used for analysis, we can simulate high-speed signals in those tricky sections of designs before fabrication, dramatically improving board performance on the first spin. These tools can help improve the performance of a board in ways that are difficult to do without simulation. Some examples include:

• Length matching of a bus of nets that may meet the minimal conditions but could still be improved. The analysis tools will allow you to exercise these nets and see if further matching improves things or is not worth the effort.
• We can predict and eliminate the types of signal integrity issues that could be due to the actual settings of a control IC that are often not considered until after the board is out to fabrication. The simulation forces a conversation between the firmware and hardware groups that helps to define the actual speeds we need to obtain on the board and to determine the optimal settings for drive strength and/or on die termination.

Have a DDR design? This is a great example of circuits that often benefit from analysis, including timing analysis. Simulation can predict the amount of design margin across a range of operating conditions.

Design Audits

We can offer an independent review of your schematic and/or PCB layout. Tell us your design requirements, and our experienced engineers and PCB designers will review your design and provide feedback. Our customers find this “proofreading” exercise to be very helpful – we can make suggestions for changes when we see room for improvement and provide assurance that the design has been reviewed by one more “set of eyes” before you commit to fab and assembly.

Part Obsolescence

Maybe you are working on an old design that includes components that have been declared obsolete, or maybe you are just struggling with “active” components that can't be sourced due to supply chain issues, but, either way, many of our customers are faced with redesigning boards due to component availability. Newgrange Design can help. Our experienced engineers can review alternative parts, make suggestions for replacements, and handle any necessary redesign of associated circuits. Our PCB designers can then revise your layout and get you back to production quickly.

Eval/COTS Board Customization

Have you prototyped a design using an Evaluation Board or a Commercial Off-The-Shelf Board like a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino? Are you ready to move to the next stage and develop your own board? Newgrange Design can help to design a board that includes all the features you need, none of the components you don't need, and fit it all in your custom form factor.

We can design your board and just deliver all the manufacturing files to you, or we can help you work with fab and assembly houses to build your first prototypes. If you need support for the initial functional test and board "bring up," we can help with that, too.