Every IC and/or SoC design requires extensive electrical validation, debug,   specification compliance check, and performance optimization works before they   are ready for launch. Each IO interface supported by the IC and/or SoC has to be   validated. Typical electrical validation involves taking waveform captures of various   IO signals using oscilloscope. Unfortunately, oscilloscope does not allow for further   analysis of the captured waveforms which are needed to determine specification compliance and margin to specification. In addition, performing various measurements and debug in the lab sitting at the lab bench for many hours is very uncomfortable and ergonomically unfriendly. Thus, it is critical to be able to further post-process the captured waveforms off-line in a more comfortable and ergonomically friendly setting.

Signata provides the best off-line signal analysis software which, in addition to alleviating ergonomic issues, allows engineers to further analyze the captured waveforms anytime and anywhere for the purposes of specification compliance, electrical validation, electrical debug, characterization, performance optimization, simulation correlation, and specification development. Another key advantage of Signata’s off-line signal analysis software is the ability to easily share the analysis results with other teams and/or companies. Consider the following 4 scenarios:

1. Sharing analysis results among geographically dispersed teams within a company – nowadays it is very common for a company to have multiple teams located in various geographies work on the same design project. For example, the design team is located at one site and the validation team is located at another site (possibly in another country). When the validation team is faced with electrical performance issue it would be very advantageous to be able to share the results with the design team which is located at a different site. Thus, avoiding the needs to have to send a team of design engineers to the validation site. Another common arrangement is to have validation teams in different geographies to work on the same project thus, allowing project validation to be carried out practically 24/7. Ability to easily share the electrical validation results among the different teams help companies avoid the need to send teams of engineers to a different site to address electrical issues and allows the project to be executed around the clock thus, saving time and money.
2. Sharing analysis results between IC/SoC manufacturer and its customer – device manufacturers will need to work with their customers, system manufacturers, whenever there are electrical issues faced by the system manufacturer. Ability to easily share electrical validation results between companies allows the device manufacturers to support their customers promptly without having to send a team to the customer’s site thus, reducing support cost and improve customer satisfaction.
3. Sharing analysis results among companies in an effort to develop a new IO specification standard – it is common for companies to collaborate with each other to develop IO interface specification, many times as part of some standard bodies e.g., companies collaborate together to develop memory specification as part of JEDEC standard body. It would be very useful for companies in this setting to be able to share their electrical analysis results among themselves thus, increase clarity and efficiency in developing the IO interface specification.
4. Sharing analysis results between Electrical Validation Services Company and its customer – many companies outsource their electrical validation activities to validation services companies such as Granite River Lab. The needs to be able to share the analysis results between the validation services company and its client is obvious, especially when there are issues. However, the additional advantage of having off-line signal analysis capability is to be able to address issue or re-examine results well after the conclusion of the contracted work with the validation services company. The clients simply ask to keep all the waveform captures so that they can revisit and re-do the signal analysis whenever the needs arises thus, avoiding the need to pay for a new validation services contract.

Signata off-line signal analysis software offers a lot of benefits to engineers and companies from improving ergonomics and work-life balance to increasing efficiency/TTM and reduce cost. Contact Signata team to discuss how our solution can help your work. In the mean time make it a great day!