Designing a PCI Express card??

[DLABUN]

How can I deisgn a PCB that has a PCIe x1 card edge? I'm trying to design a PC add-on card for an embedded computer system but can't figure out how I would create the card in Multisim and then Ulitboard.

[yyao]

Hi there,

Unfortunately, we don't have any PCI express board outlines in our Ultiboard database yet. However, if there are users out there who have done this and would like to share their designs, it wouldd be greatly appreciated. Have you taken a look at the PCISIG website? There is a lot of information about all PCI standards out there, however, it seems that only members get access to the complete details.

[DLABUN]

Yi,

Since NI sells PCIe based GPIB cards, is it possible an NI employee has already created a PCIe layout?  I am assuming it would be easier to get that information internal than from PCISIG.

Doug

[yyao]

Hi Doug,

I don't think we, the Electronics Workbench group, will have access to our Instrument Control group's designs. However, it might not hurt to ask in their section of the forum.

Good luck!

[DLABUN]

No luck with the Instrument Control group....It looks like Ultiboard has turned into a very expensive mistake on my part.

Doug

[nestor-sg]

Hi Doug, you can create a custom board outline in Ultiboard on two ways:

1) If you have the outline in a DXF file from AutoCAD, Solidworks or other CAD package you can import it using File > Import. Just merge it to the board outline layer (in the dialog you select this).

2) You can also manually draw the board outline. So, if you have a technical drawing of a PCIe card, and you have the dimensions, you can easily: double-click the board outline layer to make it active (in the design toolbox), and then use the Place >> Shape, or Place >> Graphic menus to start building the shape of the PCIe card. You can hit the * key in your keyboard whenever you want to define precise coordinate locations. You just need to make sure that you do close the shape, that is the start and end points should match. I just looked into a PCIe card around here and it seems that you should be able to do it all with the "line" tool, it does not seems to me that you need arcs, beziers or things like that. The only place where the work gets tedious is when you need to place all the SMD pads on the top and bottom layers that would make the PCIe connector. For this matter, you might want to create an array of pins (SMD)... that will be much easier.

There is another way to create board outlines, and that is, using the board outline wizard. However, it won't help you in this case since it only creates circular or rectangle -shaped outlines.

I hope this info helps, I have filed a feature request (#102818) so that is in our radar for future development. We recently added the cRIO outlines, and we could really benefit users like you if we add the PCIe and ExpressCards outlines as well; however it takes time to develop one, test it and integrate it into the product.

Cheers,

[BYeske]

Did this ever get created?  I looked and no PCIe Board outline Yet.

[nestor-sg]

Hi Ben, I just checked in Ultiboard and with our librarian, we don't have a PCIe board outline in the library yet. There has been more emphasis in creating IPC-compliant landpatterns, generic connectors, connectors specific to NI cards and cRIO and sbRIO outlines.

My previous 2009 post still applies, you can create your own PCIe outline. If you have the DXF drawing simply import it, or if you want to draw it in Ultiboard from scratch you only need the dimensional drawing. To properly link a Multisim design with an Ultiboard PCIe layout, you would perhaps create the PCIe connector as an array of SMD pads in the top and bottom layers, this connector could be your forward and back annotation link when you use it in Multisim. In Ultiboard, you would accurately place the connector in the proper place in your PCIe board outline.

This process has been used by other users I've talked to with success. I agree that it would be nice if we could provide at least the PCIe dimensional drawings, unfortunately we don't have permissions to distribute it outside of NI. Those other users had the DXF available, and there was one who had dimensional drawings, he ended up using Inkscape to draft it, and then export as DXF.

I hope this gives some guidance.