Use of electromagnetic simulation for signal integrity analysis of TFT interfaces in automotive human machine interface systems

This article discusses about the use of electromagnetic (EM) simulation for signal integrity (SI) design on the interface to a thin film transistor (TFT) display used in automotive human-machine- interface (HMI) cluster. As the display size increases, so does the operating frequency of the display. With that, signal integrity (SI) simulation has become an integral part of automotive design. In order to perform an SI analysis of such interface, information of the printed circuit board (PCB) and flexible printed circuit (FPC) cable are required. Hence, a brute force approach of simulation and analysing such interface is time-consuming. Given the iterative nature of such design work, this has significant impact on the time to market. In this paper, several key methods to reduce computational effort is discussed and evaluated. This includes the use of equivalent circuit models, different modelling methods for the PCB and FPC, and models conversion. A practical example is demonstrated using the various co-simulation approaches to achieve fast SI analysis without compromising on its accuracy.