Z-zero announced the third major release of its PCB stackup planning software products: Z-planner, for PCB stackup design and materials selection; and Z-solver, for quick, accurate impedance and insertion–loss results.
New Features in 2019.1
Z-planner’s patent-pending automated material matching utility—new with 2019.1—allows hardware designers to match materials in an existing stackup using up to six different material parameters, with an option to recreate the existing stackup, if desired.
Single-ended and differential coplanar waveguides are supported in 2019.1, at the request of signal integrity engineers. The release also accommodates automated trace width and spacing calculations for target impedances, including unlimited single-ended and differential-impedance classes and functionality for meeting design requirements with target differential-pitch values.
The 2019.1 release adds the ability to import additional PCB fabricator stackup formats as requested by hardware OEMs, as well as ANSYS SIwave and HFSS 3D Layout.
2019.1 adds full metric-system support, enabling hardware teams to work in the units their customers and industries are most accustomed. This is particularly important in automotive and in the European market. Z-zero takes it a step further, allowing users to choose between centimeters (cm), millimeters (mm), or microns (um) for most physical attributes.
“This release has a good mix of our own innovation combined with helpful requests from our growing user community,” said Bill Hargin, Director of Everything at Z-zero. “Our first two releases were tied to building the product architecture and laminate library, and the theme for this release is adding automation for stackup tasks that used to take a good bit of time.”
New laminate libraries are provided, including materials from AGC-Nelco, Nanya Plastics, Ventec, and updates to the TUC (Taiwan Union Corp.) product line.
Significant Benefits for Digital Hardware Engineering Teams
Most hardware designers are comfortable representing PCB stackups using spreadsheets, so Z-planner is architected to look and operate like one. The tool bridges the sizable gap between the spreadsheets many engineers and fabricators use to describe their stackups and the PCB signal-integrity world — with a short learning curve.
Previous releases included import/export interfaces for IPC-2581 and Mentor’s HyperLynx signal-integrity software, allowing users to bring legacy stackups into Z-planner, taking advantage of some of the additional features and functionality in Z-planner, including a library of more than 150 materials and awareness of glass styles, resin contents, pressed prepreg thicknesses, the frequency dependence of dielectric constants (Dk) and dissipation factors (Df), and automation of the PCB-stackup-design process. Engineering teams that are serious about signal integrity, crosstalk, and power integrity should find Z-planner to be an accuracy-increasing addition to their high-speed design flow—all bundled into a powerful, affordably priced, easy-to-use tool.
About Z-solver
Z-zero’s Z-solver provides the most reasonably priced path to making what-if tradeoffs between Dk, Df, physical trace topologies, and spacing—with results that include single-ended impedance, differential impedance, propagation delay, loss as a function of frequency, and the effects of copper roughness. Both Z-planner and Z-solver include the time-tested HyperLynx boundary-element 2D field solver.
Pricing and Availability
Z-planner 2019.1 is available immediately with pricing starting at $5500 (single user, node locked) and $9500 for a floating network license. An evaluation version of Z-planner software, as well as a PCB stackup design tutorial, are available for free download at www.z-zero.com. Z-solver 2019.1 is also available, with pricing starting at $1250 (single user, node locked) and $3000 for a floating network license. Wide-area network (WAN) licenses are also available.