
CFD and EDA tools: The Interoperability of FLOTHERM and Board Station/AutoTherm: Concurrent Design of a Motorola
PowerPC RISC Microprocessor-based Microcomputer
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CFD and EDA tools
The Interoperability of FLOTHERM and
Board Station/AutoTherm:
Concurrent Design of a Motorola PowerPC RISC
Microprocessor-based Microcomputer
Gary Kromann (1), Vincent Pimont (2) and Steve Addison (3)
(1) MOTOROLA
Advanced Packaging Technology
3501 Ed Bluestein Blvd.
mailstop: TX11, K1
Austin, Texas, USA 78721
Email: R14103@email.sps.mot.com
TEL: (512) 933-3565
FAX: (512) 933-6344
(2) Mentor Graphics
Systems on Board Division
8005 SW Boeckman Road
Wilsonville, Oregon, USA 97070-7777
Email : vincent_pimont@mentorg.com
TEL : (503) 685 1015
FAX : (503) 685 7991
(3) Flomerics Inc.
Western Region
2880 Zanker Road
Suite 203
San Jose, CA, USA 95134
Tel: (408) 954 7332
Fax: (408) 954 7335
Email: steve@ca.flomerics.com
Summary
This paper discusses an attempt to bring thermal analysis early in the printed-circuit board design
process, when designing Motorola’s PowerPC 603 and PowerPC 604 microprocessor-based
desktop system. The goal was to assess a methodology that should help to define a real
concurrent design process for future projects. We emphasize here the thermal aspects of this
concurrent process that required the use of a board-level (AutoTherm from Mentor Graphics) and
system-level thermal analysis tool (FLOTHERM from Flomerics).
After describing the project, and the dataflow currently available between AutoTherm and
FLOTHERM, we describe the practical steps that were carried out in this project, and how
thermal design has finally been included as one of the constraint during the component
placement phase on the printed-circuit board design.
Overall the experience gained through this project on multi-level thermal analysis, as well as,
working in a cross-functional team environment is presented. Also presented are the steps for
implementing such a concurrent design flow.