ALSTOM

Client

ALSTOM Belgium Transport is a subsidiary of the ALSTOM Group, a leading global player in the design, manufacture and maintenance of complete rail transport systems. Based in Charleroi with an 800 strong workforce, the site is a centre of excellence for auxiliary converters and the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) – a standard European signals system for rail traffic interoperability that sets out to increase the capacity of traffic and security and to reduce journey times. 

Project

Alstom has encountered signal integrity problems on a new product prototype. As those complex problems were detected at the end of the development phase, Alstom was looking for a partner capable to offer a fast support and a pragmatic solutions set to decrease the time-to-market of this product.

Challenge

DELTATEC was involved late in the project and a lot of design choices were already done. The board was quite complex mixing high voltage and fast digital bus. Moreover, the integrity problems were obviously dependent on the conditions of use of the board.

Solution

DELTATEC is equipped with the latest technology laboratory equipment’s and CAD software. The high speed busses layout has been analysed to resolve typical high-speed design effects including over/undershoot, ringing, crosstalk and timing. A set of recommendations has been provided to Alstom before the manufacturing of the board.

Thanks to this pre-manufacturing analysis, the new version of the board doesn’t suffer anymore of signal integrity effects.