Circuit Boards

Circuit board designers must place components to optimize both thermal and mechanical performance. The design of flexible circuit boards poses additional challenges—the determination of the flat board shape and layer structure for optimal performance in the flexed configuration, and then the fatigue performance as the circuit board flexes.

The Abaqus Unified FEA product suite from SIMULIA allows manufacturers of rigid and flexible circuit boards to make important decisions about component placement and support design. The SIMULIA solution includes state-of-the-art simulation techniques for modeling circuit boards undergoing mechanical (bending, shock/drop, flexing) and thermal loading. For flexible circuit boards, fatigue can be considered to allow lifecycle predictions. Modern circuit boards are complex, multi-layered structures, and our solution also includes industry leading progressive fracture/failure capabilities to allow delamination modeling.

Solution Capabilities

• Unified modeling and simulation environment based on Abaqus/CAE
  • Tools available to simply and efficiently build complex electronics assemblies from Electrical-CAD data
• Advanced material modeling and calibration tools for leaded and lead-free solder
• Best-in-class element formulations and constraints needed to model complex multi-layered circuit board structures.
• Simulation methods to allow robust coupled-field analyses of thermal, electrical, mechanical (both static and linear or nonlinear dynamic)
  • Multiple load types can be applied to a single model
  • Techniques available to efficiently handle the problems of different size scales typically found in electronic assemblies
• Process automation available to capture expert-generated workflows for deployment to non-FEA-expert users