Sherlock Tutorial Project Overview

Transcription

1 Sherlock Tutorial Project Overview Background Sherlock organizes design files, inputs and analysis results as project folders that can be managed inside of the Sherlock application and shared between Sherlock users. This lesson shows you how to import a Sherlock project and provides an overview of the various files and displays associated with a project. Subsequent lessons will show you how to create projects, maintain design files, modify inputs and perform analysis tasks. When Sherlock is executed and your license file has been properly validated, the Sherlock main window will appear. The main window is divided into three sections, with the Main Menu along the top, the Project Tree along the left side and the Content Panels occupying the reset of the window. There is a vertical divider between the Project Tree and the Content Panels that allows you to make the Project Tree panel wider or narrower to suit your purposes. You can also resize the main window at any time using standard window controls. Since no projects exist when Sherlock is first installed, the Project Tree is empty, waiting for you to import or create one or more projects of 18

2 Importing a Project Let's begin by importing a completed project; one which has all the necessary design files, inputs defined, analysis tasks performed and results generated. To import a project, select the Import Project option from the Project menu located in the Main Menu. Enter Tutorial (or anything you want) as the project name and press the Browse button to locate the project archive file to be imported. In this case, we're looking for the Tutorial Project.zip file located in the tutorial subdirectory of the Sherlock Installation Directory (usually c:\program Files\DfR Solutions\Sherlock). After locating the ZIP file using the file browser, the Import Project dialog will look like this: Press the Import Project button to import all files associated with the tutorial project. Depending on the size of the project archive file and the types of information being imported it may take a minute or so to load the archive file. During that time, a progress dialog will be displayed. When the import process has completed, the Tutorial folder will be added to the Project Tree and will be fully expanded to allow quick access to all project files, inputs and results. All folders in the Project Tree (including the project folder itself) can be expanded or collapsed to view or hide information as needed. You can expand or collapse a folder either by left-clicking the triangular icon to the left of the folder name or by right-clicking the folder name and selecting Expand or Collapse at the bottom of the pop up menu. For practice, collapse the various project folders until the Project Tree looks like the tree shown here. We can now easily see that the project consists of three basic sets of information, the Life Cycle definition, the Project Results and the Main Board. In this project, only a single printed circuit card is defined, but projects may contain more than one board. The information associated with the Main Board includes the Design Files, Analysis Inputs and Results, as well as the individual circuit card results of 18

3 When a project contains only a single circuit card, the Project Results and the Circuit Card Results are essentially the same. The only difference is the Project Report, which is only found in the Project Results folder. The Project Tree not only organizes the information about each project, but it also serves as a to-do list. Specifically, the icons displayed next to each folder indicate whether or not some user action is required to either correct a problem or provide additional input. Sherlock does its best to eliminate the need for user inputs, but there are still times when user actions are required. In the tutorial project, all inputs have been entered and all analysis has been performed, so we see a green check mark alongside of each folder indicating that no additional work is required. We will now review the information and files associated with each of the project tree folders. Project Life Cycle The project Life Cycle defines the desired reliability goals for the project and the various environmental stresses that the circuit cards will see over the project lifetime. Sherlock is capable of defining a wide range of Life Cycles, from simple to complex, which are then used by the analysis modules to predict circuit card reliability. As such, it is important for you to become familiar with how modifications made to the Life Cycle definitions affect the analysis results. In this lesson, however, since we're just getting started, we'll just overview the various definitions. In subsequent lessons, we'll describe how the Life Cycle definitions are used by the various analysis modules. Expand the Life Cycle folder to show all of its definitions. We see that the Life Cycle consists of two phases called Environmental and On The Road represented by folders. In turn, each phase consists of multiple events representing that various environmental stresses that the project will experience during all or part of the associated phase. Such a hierarchical definition of phases and events is very flexible, allowing users to define a wide range of Life Cycles. It will soon become evident that the Life Cycle definitions used in the tutorial project don't represent a very realist world. The definitions were contrived to allow use to show various aspects of the Sherlock analysis process and results. Please don't use the tutorial Life Cycle as is for any real circuit card analysis of 18

4 Life Cycle definitions can be exported to the file system using the Save Life Cycle menu option available by right-clicking on the Life Cycle folder in the Project Tree and can be subsequently imported using the Load Life Cycle menu option. This allows users to maintain different Life Cycle definitions over a long period of time, easily assigned a given Life Cycle to a given project and share Life Cycles across many projects and users. Let's examine the overall project goals and how often the phases and events will be seen by the circuit card being analyzed. To that end, right-click the Life Cycle folder and select Edit Properties from the pop-up menu to show the Life Cycle Editor. As we can see, the Life Cycle has a name and description (that is displayed in the Project Report) and two reliability goal properties (that are used by all analysis modules). Press Cancel to close the dialog without modifying any of the properties of 18

5 To examine how the phases and events relate to each other, double-click the Life Cycle folder to display the Life Cycle tab in the Content Panels area of the main window. At the bottom of the Life Cycle tab, you'll see two sub-tabs, namely Phases and Events. Sherlock routinely uses tabs and sub-tabs in the Content Panel to help organize the vast number of informational and result panels that can be displayed for one or more projects containing one or more circuit cards. To assist you, Sherlock remembers which sub-tab you last viewed within a given tab and displays it by default whenever the tab is re-displayed. Press the Phases tab to show the relationship between the two phases defined in this Life Cycle. Here, we see the reliability goals again, as well the duration of each phase relative to the overall Service Life defined. In this case, we see that the Environmental phase spans the entire service life time period (5 years) and the On The Road phase spans less than 15% of the service life. In subsequent lessons we'll see how these relative phase durations affect the various analysis results of 18

6 Now, click on the Events sub-tab to view a summary of all phase events. The Events sub-tab is broken into four panels, summarizing the four different types of events that can be defined. In this case, we see that one of the thermal events (Environmental 1 Temp Cycle) spans the entire service life, while the other (On The Road 4 Thermal Shock) only spans a small percentage of the service life. The Mechanical Shock and Random Vibe Events only occur a small number of times, which represents a very small percentage of the 5 year service life. A subsequent lesson will show how to modify Life Cycle phases and events. At this point, you can close the Life Cycle tab in the Content Panel and collapse the Life Cycle folder in the Project Tree so we can focus on the next project folder of 18

7 Project Results The primary purpose of Sherlock is to generate analysis results. In this section we review how the analysis results are summarized in Sherlock as a Score Card, Life Prediction chart and a printable PDF report. To that end, expand the Project Results folder to reveal the underlying project results. Keep in mind, for simplicity, the tutorial project only has a single circuit card defined. Nonetheless, there are plenty of results to examine. The icons next to each folder entry indicates that our results are ready and waiting to be reviewed. If results were not available or a problem occurred while generating them, then a red X icon would be displayed next to the unavailable item. Score Card Double-click the Score Card entry to display the Project Results tab in the Content Panel. The Score Card is actually a collection of score cards, one each for the various analyzes performed on the circuit card. The individual scores for each analysis task, as well as a break-down of component scores is provided. The individual scores are then combined to produce an Overall Score for the project. In this case, the Main Board has some significant problems and the Overall Score is 0.0 definitely not a production-ready circuit card. Although the score card is useful for summarizing specific analysis results, the overall project results can also be viewed in a graphical form as the Life Prediction chart. To that end, click the Life Prediction sub-tab at the bottom of the Project Results content panel. For convenience, you may also double-click the Life Prediction entry under the Project Results folder in the Project Tree. Both navigation choices take you to the same content of 18

8 Life Prediction Chart The Life Prediction chart shows a summary of all analysis results that predict the reliability of circuit card holes or components, as well as a graphical display of the reliability goals specified in the Life Cycle definition. Here, we can easily see that the Main Board will not meet the life cycle reliability goals. At the 5 year point, failures related to Plated Through Hole (PTH) Fatigue and Solder Fatigue are predicted to be well below the desired goal, but failures related to Random Vibration Fatigue and Constant Failure Analysis (MIL-217) are predicted to be unacceptably high. The Combined Failure curve shows that the Main Board will simply not meet it's overall reliability goals of 18

9 Project Report It's often said that a job isn't complete until the paperwork is done. Sherlock helps as much as possible by generating a printable PDF report containing as much or as little as you want about the project. Aside from choosing various options from a long list of options, you need only press a button to generate and/or view the report. We've already generated a report for the tutorial project, so let's examine it first by double-clicking on the Report entry in the Project Results folder. At that point, you're favorite PDF viewer should appear, displaying the Sherlock report, as shown here. As you page through the report, you'll see a summary score card, a description of all analysis modules available, an explanation of how the results were generated, graphical representations of the Life Cycle phases and events, as well as detailed results and problem areas determined by each of the analysis modules. The report provided with the tutorial project is relatively short at only 17 pages long. If we selected all the options available, the single circuit card report could be as much as 50 pages long. It's up to you to decide how much or how little you want to include in the report. Fortunately, you can change your mind at any time and generate as many different reports as needed. Sherlock only stores the last report generated for subsequent viewing. If you need different reports for different purposes or need to maintain an archive of reports over time for a given project - either save a copy of the PDF report in a separate location, or save the CCA results using the Sherlock Result Viewer (described later in the tutorial) of 18

10 To see how reports are generated, we'll take a quick look at the Report Properties dialog by right-clicking the Report entry in the Project Tree and selecting the Generate Report menu option. Here we see that the report consists of a sequence of optional sections. By simply selecting or de-selecting sections you can customize the report to suit your purposes. For convenience, if a high-level tree entry is deselected, then all lower-level entries in that sub-tree will NOT appear in the report, regardless of their individual selection setting. This allows users to exclude large sections temporarily without losing all lower-level selection settings. We're done with the Project Results for now, so you can close the Project Results tab in the Content Panel and collapse the Project Results folder in the Project Tree. Circuit Card Information Sherlock maintains various information about each Circuit Card assigned to a given project, including: Electronic design files (BOM, layer, drill, layout, etc) Input data derived from design files (Parts List, Stackup, etc) Tabular and graphical results for each analysis performed Circuit card results summary (Score Card, Life Prediction) The Project Tree organizes all the circuit card information, providing quick access to both high-level and low-level information. Expand the Main Board entry in the Project Tree to view all the information associated with our tutorial board. As we saw earlier, the icons associated with each entry show either the type of information to be found, indicate that a user action is required or that a problem has occurred. In our tutorial example, all files have been processed successfully, all inputs have been entered and reviewed, and all analysis tasks have been executed, so we see green check marks and associated file type icons everywhere. If we examine the Files folder, we can see the collection of design files that have been imported into of 18

11 Sherlock from which input data is derived. In this case, we see two Pick & Place files providing the location of the top and bottom locations, six copper layer definition files, one drill hole file, two silk screen layers, two solder mask layers and a map of thermal data for various components. Sherlock knows how to parse and process an extensive list of file formats. In this case, most of the files came from an ODB++ archive of design files for the Main Board, but you are free to add files (such as the Thermal Map.csv file) that come from other sources. Subsequent lessons will explain how various design files can be processed by Sherlock. Layer Viewer Aside from providing a nice listing of all design files, the Project Tree can also be used to quickly view the design files in various formats. For example, if you doubleclick the copper-01.odb entry in the Project Tree, the Sherlock Layer Viewer window will appear as shown here: of 18

12 The Layer Viewer displays one or more graphical layers associated with the selected circuit card. In this case, we're viewing the top copper layer (the green traces), along with the board outline (the blue outer box). Although we launched the layer viewer by selecting a single design file in the Project Tree, we can easily add or remove any number of layers to the display by selecting or de-selecting the layer name on the left side of the Layer Viewer window. We can also easily filter graphical features (such as components and/or their labels), filter parts by size or label and filter holes by size. The combination of layer and feature filtering makes the Layer Viewer an excellent way to examine circuit card design details and analysis results. For example, the following display: results from selecting the RV Disp RMS layer in the FEA Results folder, along with the comptop layer in the Components folder. We've also chosen to display all component labels, filter all parts smaller than 5 mm and filter all holes less than 3 mm (except mount points). The buttons in the lower right corner of the Layer Viewer can be used to export a snapshot of the display to an image file, zoom in, zoom out and zoom to fit. You can also zoom in by double-clicking anywhere in the layer viewer and pan the display by dragging the mouse while holding the left mouse button down. Take some time to click through the various design and result layers provided with the tutorial and you'll quickly see the usefulness of the Layer Viewer. Subsequent lessons will show how to modify design files and input data using the Layer Viewer of 18

13 Input Data Design files provide Sherlock with graphical representations of the circuit card, but they also provide a wealth of data related to the circuit card components and the circuit card itself. Such data is used as input to the analysis modules, depending on their specific needs, and therefore represents a critical part of the process performed by Sherlock. If you expand the Inputs entry in the Project Tree you'll see entries for the Parts List, Stackup data, Layers, Pick & Place and Drill Holes. The last 3 entries (Layers, Pick & Place, and Drill Holes) are simply convenient links to the Layer Viewer and need no further discussion. The first two, however, display two very important data displays, namely the Parts List and Stackup Data. Double-click the Parts List entry to display the Main Board Parts List in the Content Panel as shown here: of 18

14 As the name implies, the Parts List shows a list of all parts (aka. components) associated with the circuit card. The Parts List is color coded to indicate where the various data was found (data can be derived from multiple, conflicting sources) and whether or not the user has reviewed the data for correctness. The Parts List supports a number of features that allow users to drill-down to specific part properties (Sherlock maintains many dozens of properties per part, as well as different property values from different sources), modify part properties as needed, filter parts for viewing/editing purposes and export part properties to a CSV file for further processing. Subsequent lessons (specifically the lessons covering how to import and create projects) describe in detail the Parts List features and how to use them in Sherlock. The Parts List holds information about each of the parts used on a circuit card, but the data associated with the circuit card itself is maintained as Stackup Data. Double-click the Stackup entry in the Project Tree to display the Main Board Stackup tab in the Content Panel. The Stackup tab shows the design and mechanical properties associated with each circuit card layer (as derived from the design files or entered manually by the user) and the aggregate mechanical properties derived automatically by Sherlock for the circuit card. These mechanical properties are used primarily by the Finite Element Analysis module and will be covered in more detail in that lesson of 18

15 Analysis Results All of the design files and input data are maintained for only one purpose, to allow the Sherlock analysis modules to predict the reliability of the circuit card. For the most part, analysis tasks can be executed at any time once a minimal amount of data has been entered. Clearly, if only minimal data has been entered and/or the data has not been fully verified, then the analysis results may be suspect, but Sherlock will generate the results nonetheless. It is ultimately up to the user to ensure that the input data is as correct as possible or required. That said, Sherlock does automatically take some actions to ensure that the inputs and results maintained in a project are consistent. Specifically, Sherlock automatically clears analysis results, along with score cards, Life Prediction curves, and any previously generated report whenever key input data is modified. For example, if you add or remove a thermal event to the Life Cycle, then any analysis result that depends on thermal events will be cleared. Similarly, if you move the location of a part by editing the Parts List or by using the Component Editor in the Layer Viewer, then Sherlock will automatically clear all results that depend on part location. The results generated by each analysis module may differ in various ways depending on the type of analysis being performed, but they also show similar types of results, such as: Summary panel showing key input values and results, Table of detailed result data (per part, per hole, etc) Life Prediction curve (Deterministic analysis modules only) Result data distribution charts For example, double-click the Solder Fatigue entry in the Project Tree to display the Main Board Solder Fatigue tab in the Sherlock Result Viewer as shown here. The Summary Panel provides an overview of the scores generated for each component analyzed, the key inputs used for the analysis, and statistics about the analysis process itself. With a module score of 8.6 we see that there are only a few minor concerns for this circuit card regarding solder fatigue failures. The Time to Fail and Table sub-tabs at the bottom of the Solder Fatigue results panel provide views of the analysis results, which can be exported as image or CSV files of 18

16 Take some time to click through the various tutorial results provided by each of the analysis modules. When viewing a tabular display, you can right-click any row for additional features. When viewing graphical charts, you can also right-click anywhere in the chart for additional features. These topics will be discussed in detail in subsequent lessons. Circuit Card Results As we discussed in the Project Results section, when only a single circuit card is assigned to a project then the Results entry contained in the sub-tree related to a circuit card is the same as the Project Results entry contained at the project level, with the exception of the Project Report. If, however, multiple circuit cards are assigned to a project, then the score card and Life Prediction charts maintained at the circuit card level will only contain the results associated with the specific circuit card. Saving Circuit Card Results Circuit Card Results can be saved for later comparison and reporting purposes. Right-click on the CCA Results folder and select the Save Results menu option. After entering a name ('Main Board ', in this case) for the results, a snapshot of the current CCA results are saved to the Saved Results folder of 18

17 Sherlock Result Viewer Double-clicking on any of the folders under Saved Results will launch the Sherlock Result Viewer. As mentioned earlier, the Result Viewer shows current reliability results from Sherlock Analysis modules. When CCA results are saved, additional information, such as the Score Card, Life Prediction, Layers, Stackup, Netlist, and Parts List are also saved and visible in the Result Viewer: The Sherlock Result Viewer also provides a option for generating a PDF Report from saved results (File->Generate Report) of 18

18 Closing a Project As we've seen above, you can expand or collapse any folder in the Project Tree as needed, including the project folder itself. When a project folder is collapsed, all of the entries associated with that project are hidden from view, but internal resources associated with the project are still maintained. If you want to keep a Sherlock project available, but not consume any resources then you can close a project by right-clicking on the project folder and selecting the Close Project menu option. When a project is closed, the project name is displayed in the Project Tree, but all entries are hidden from view and no resources are used in Sherlock. Additionally, the Layer Viewer and any content panels associated with the project will be automatically closed. You can re-open a closed project at any time by right-clicking the project folder and selecting the Open Project menu option (which will be the only available menu option). Since we're done with the tutorial project for now, go ahead and close the project. We'll let you know in subsequent lessons when we need to access it again. Summary We've concluded our overview of the key capabilities provided by Sherlock by examining a completed tutorial project. The next lessons describe how to import and create Sherlock projects, including detailed discussions of the critical data validation process. As such, you'll see many of the same displays discussed in this lesson, but with more detailed explanations. There are also lessons that describe in detail each of the analysis modules, the inputs required by them and the iterative analysis process (e.g., enter data, perform analysis, review results, repeat) that can be used to improve the accuracy of your reliability predictions over time using Sherlock of 18