simulation to streamline cellular phone...

Reprinted with permission from the

Spring 2007 edition of

Simulation to Streamline Cellular Phone Development

Ideas and Strategies in Product Development

Ideas and Strategies in Product Development

An Publication

SP

RI N

G 2 0 0 7

Altair Engineering, Inc.

2

6

15

c2rCover 7 Winter-2007:c2rCover 6 Winter/2007 4/19/07 9:17 AM Page covA

Simulation plays a critical role in product

development, with a broad impact from package-

level simulation to system-level modeling. To put

this into perspective, typical design cycles decreased

from about 18 m

onths in the late 1990s to

under a year in 2005. While cycle tim

e has

compressed, the functionality of the devices has

grown tremendously. In order to design new products

in fewer than 10 months, which is a goal at Motorola,

the traditional “build-and-test” approach has been

widely replaced by up-front simulation.

Finding Part Interferences

Cellular phone models typically consist of

hundreds of components packaged within a small

space. Often, after a mesh has been completed, there

are portions of the mesh (elements and nodes) that

interfere with each other. These interferences occur

either because of underlying geometry or result from

the tessellation of the geometry while being meshed.

Using the traditional process, an analyst needed up

to three days to manually find and correct the

interferences in the virtual model. Moreover, these

interfering nodes and elements can often be nearly

impossible to detect manually.

If these interfering elements are allowed to remain

in the model, it can lead to errors during the execution

of the model. This results in unacceptable delays to

debug the problem – and wasted central processing

unit (CPU) cycles on the compute server.

To find and correct these issues, a custom interference-

checking program was built, based on Motorola’s

internal requirements. The proprietary “interference

matrix” shows modeling errors in a graphical format,

and the “interference solution graphical user

Figure 1. Typical FEM model of a cellular phone.

Motorola, Inc. – founded in 1928 and recognized

around the world for innovation and leadership

in wireless and broadband communications –

pioneered mobile communications in the 1930s with car

radios and public safety networks, coining the company

brand that suggests “sound in motion.” With

approximately 68,000 employees, Motorola directs the

activities of 320 facilities in 73 countries from its global

headquarters in Schaumburg, IL.

For more than 75 years, the company has remained

committed to engineering innovation. Harnessing the

power of technology convergence, Motorola made the

equipment that carried the first words back from the

moon in 1969. Motorola led the communications

revolution with the 1983 introduction of the first

commercial cellular phone. Reportedly, the company

spends as much as 10 percent of its annual income in

research and development efforts.

Today, Motorola offers market-changing icons of

personal technology and is a leader in multinode, multi-

band communications products and technologies. The

Plantation, FL-based Mobile Devices division designs,

manufactures, sells and services wireless subscriber

and server equipment for cellular systems; portable

energy storage products and systems; servers and

software solutions; and related software and accessory

products.At M

otorola, that means designing and delivering

“must-have” products, must-have experiences and

powerful networks to keep people connected.

Motorola

at a Glance

12

Concept To Reality/ S

pring 2007

www.altair.co

m/c2

r

MOTOROLA 6 dave_BB:MOTOROLA3 4/19/07 10:09 AM 2

Upstre

amm

odel sim

ulatio

n

reduce

s prod

uct d

evelo

pmen

t tim

e

and e

nables

Mot

orola

to m

eet

critic

al m

arke

t dem

ands

.

to S

trea

mlin

e

Dialing

into

Simula

tion

Cellu

lar Pho

ne

Deve

lopmen

t

IInsp

ired b

y a vi

sion of

“sea

mless m

obili

ty,” g

lobal

commun

icatio

ns lead

er M

otorol

a has

transfo

rmed

the

ubiqu

itous

cell p

hone o

f the l

ast ce

ntury i

nto tod

ay’s

univ

ersa

l rem

ote c

ontrol f

or li

fe. R

evol

utio

nizing

broad

band,

embe

dded

syste

ms and w

ireles

s netw

orks,

the c

ompa

ny that

pionee

red th

e firs

t port

able

two-w

ay

radio

for th

e U.S. A

rmy i

n 1943

now help

s indiv

iduals

reach

the p

eople

, things

and i

nformati

on th

ey nee

d in

their h

omes,

cars,

workpla

ces an

d eve

rywhe

re in

betw

een.

Today

’s cell

phon

es are

incre

dibly

comple

x, with

multiple

printe

d-circ

uit boar

ds and la

rge,

multi-

functi

onal

liquid

cryst

al dis

plays

(LCDs).

They

also

have t

he abil

ity to

supp

ort m

ultipl

e data

prot

ocols

such

as co

de div

ision m

ultiple

acce

ss (C

DMA),

globa

l syst

em fo

r mob

ile co

mmunica

tions (

GSM)

and W

orldwid

e Inte

roper

abili

ty fo

r Micr

owave

Access

(WiM

AX) – al

l in a

single

, slee

k han

d-held

devic

e. At t

he sam

e tim

e, de

signs m

ust be

rugg

ed an

d

10

Conce

pt To

Realit

y / Spr

ing

2007

www.altair.co

m/c

2r

by Dr. K

inzy Jones,

Doug Carroll,

Phil Green,

Chris Bates a

nd Dr. Marc Zampino

MOTOROLA 6 dave_BB:MOTOROLA3 4/19/07 10:09 AM Page 10

PR

OC

ES

SA

UT

OM

AT

I ON

(CAE) e

arlier

in th

e desi

gn cy

cle. F

or ex

ample

, the

compa

ny is u

sing A

ltair

Hyper

Wor

ks fo

r up-

front

simula

tion al

ong w

ith pr

ototyp

e test

ing to a

id in th

e

develo

pment p

roce

ss. D

oing s

o has

enab

led th

e

compa

ny to c

aptu

re pr

oduc

t-life

behav

ior, p

redict

areas

needin

g impro

vemen

t and g

enera

te high

-quali

ty

produ

cts w

ithin a

greatl

y red

uced

time f

rame.

Captur

ing prod

uct-l

ife be

havior

is a d

auntin

g task

, so

simula

tion is

combin

ed w

ith pr

ototyp

e test

ing to h

elp

in deve

loping t

he prod

uct. T

he com

monly

used p

hrase

to des

crib

e the e

xtern

al lo

adin

g that

the p

hones

expe

rience

durin

g test

ing is “

large

-moti

on, sm

all-ti

me

scales

.” In u

sing s

imula

tion t

o aid

in pr

oduc

t dev

elopm

ent,

the c

once

rn is

in de

termin

ing w

hat lev

el of

detai

l

shou

ld be

inclu

ded i

n the m

odel

to ca

pture

the r

eleva

nt

physi

cs. M

oreo

ver,

since

it is

extre

mely di

fficu

lt to

predic

t acti

ons t

hat will

result

from

a 5,0

00-g,

0.1-m

s

impa

ct pu

lse, in

tuitio

n is of

little

help.

With

toda

y’s m

odern

algo

rithms a

nd vast

compu

ting

power,

simula

tions n

eed n

ot be

simpli

stic m

odels

of

the a

ctual

problem

. Howev

er, t

his ca

n lead

to a

number of c

hallen

ges w

hen lo

oking a

t even

the

simple

st ce

llular

phon

e mod

els. S

ince

the b

ehav

ior

of man

y of t

he mat

erial

s var

ies as

the s

train

rate

chan

ges, a

dditi

onal

materia

l mod

eling m

ust be

done.

In ad

dition, i

f man

ufactu

ring v

ariab

les m

ust be

consid

ered,

the c

hallen

ges a

re ev

en m

ore co

mplex.

In an

y cas

e, while

it is

an in

timid

atin

g tas

k to

predict

drop per

form

ance

, it i

s not i

mpossible

to

manag

e its

analy

sis. A

nd, as

diffic

ult as

the s

olutio

n

techn

iques

can be

, mod

el set

up is

the la

rgest c

ontri

butor

to th

e ove

rall le

ngth of

the s

olutio

n proc

ess.

Up-Front D

esign

At M

otoro

la, t

he use

and c

ustom

izatio

n of

advan

ced C

AE so

ftwar

e hav

e stre

amlin

ed th

e

mechan

ical p

rototy

pe pr

ocess

while

grea

tly in

creasi

ng

desig

n robu

stness

. Sign

ifican

tly de

creasi

ng sim

ulatio

n

time h

as en

abled

Moto

rola e

nginee

rs to

identif

y and

corre

ct pote

ntial i

ssues

early

in th

e dev

elopmen

t

cycle

. Red

uctio

n in si

mulatio

n cycle

time i

s also

critic

al to

short

en tim

e to m

arket,

which

, in tu

rn, h

as

a posi

tive i

mpact

on th

e com

pany’s

botto

m line.

Mor

eove

r, th

e acc

elerat

ion of

the m

odel-

build

ing

proc

ess al

lows s

evera

l sim

ulatio

n passe

s on co

ncept

geom

etry b

efore

costl

y injec

tion m

oldin

g too

ls nee

d

to be

built

– a l

uxur

y that

even

two y

ears

ago w

as

impo

ssible

. For

exam

ple, a

new ce

llular

phon

e mod

el

consis

ting o

f more

than

70 un

ique c

ompo

nents

took

16 hou

rs to

go fr

om ge

ometr

y to a

fully

read

y-to-

run

simula

tion m

odel,

rath

er th

an th

e stan

dard

20-d

ay

model

deve

lopmen

t time. T

his is a

tenfol

d impro

vemen

t

in sp

eed i

n less

than

a ye

ar – an

d has

remov

ed th

e

model dev

elopmen

t cyc

le as

the g

atin

g set

of the

prot

otyp

e sim

ulatio

n proc

ess. S

imula

tion ca

n now

beco

me an up

-fron

t desi

gn to

ol.

On avera

ge, 4

0 syst

em-le

vel d

rop sim

ulatio

ns (Fig

ure

1 on pa

ge 12

) are pe

rform

ed be

fore a

desig

n is rel

eased

for pl

astic

injectio

n tooli

ng. These

simula

tions a

llow th

e

engin

eers

to under

stand th

e per

form

ance

of the

displa

ys, el

ectri

cal c

ompo

nents

and p

lastic

housin

gs.

In 20

00, f

inite

-elem

ent m

esh cr

eatio

n, con

tact

and co

nstrain

t defi

nition, m

odel deb

uggin

g and

result

inter

preta

tion w

ere h

ighly

manua

l pro

cesse

s

and to

ok more

than

two m

onths t

o perfo

rm. A

t

that

tim

e, A

ltair

Hyp

erW

orks w

as ch

osen to

auto

mate t

ime-

consu

ming m

anual

task

s, su

ch as

auto

mated

geomet

ry cl

eanup, m

esh ge

nerat

ion,

inter

feren

ce ch

eckin

g or p

ost-p

roce

ssing.

Using t

he

softw

are r

esulte

d in si

gnifi

cant t

ime s

avin

gs

and r

educ

ed m

odel

setup

time f

rom 20

days

to on

ly

two d

ays.

built

to w

ithsta

nd the d

aily e

quiva

lent o

f a co

mputer

worksta

tion an

d mon

itor t

aking a

five-f

oot f

all.

Like m

any o

f its

compe

titor

s, M

otor

ola is

drive

n

by shorte

ned des

ign cy

cles

, incr

easin

g pro

duct

comple

xity a

nd red

uced

profi

t marg

ins. Desi

gn cy

cles

that

took

18 m

onth

s in 19

98 fr

om dr

awin

g boa

rd to

plant f

loor a

re now

push

ing tow

ard a

six-m

onth

goal

to m

eet b

usin

ess-cr

itica

l pro

duct

launch

es an

d fixe

d

ship

dates

. Abo

ve al

l, to m

aintai

n a hea

lthy p

rofit

margin, M

otorol

a must

keep

down th

e ove

rall c

ost of

producin

g the p

roduct

, esp

ecial

ly to

compet

e in

coun

tries

where w

ireles

s pro

viders

rarel

y sub

sidize

the c

ost of

the p

hone.

Real-World

Reliabilit

y

To unde

rstan

d “rea

l-wor

ld” re

liabil

ity w

ell be

fore

next-g

enera

tion ce

ll phon

es hit t

he shelv

es, M

otorol

a

has in

crease

d its

use o

f com

puter

-aide

d engin

eerin

g

11

www.altair.co

m/c

2r

Conce

pt To

Realit

y / Spr

ing

2007


Upstream model simulationreduces product development timeand enables Motorola to meet

critical market demands.

to Streamline

Dialing into

SimulationCellular PhoneDevelopment

IInspired by a vision of “seamless mobility,” global communications leader Motorola has transformed theubiquitous cell phone of the last century into today’suniversal remote control for life. Revolutionizingbroadband, embedded systems and wireless networks,the company that pioneered the first portable two-wayradio for the U.S. Army in 1943 now helps individualsreach the people, things and information they need intheir homes, cars, workplaces and everywhere in between.

Today’s cell phones are incredibly complex, withmultiple printed-circuit boards and large, multi-functional liquid crystal displays (LCDs). They alsohave the ability to support multiple data protocolssuch as code division multiple access (CDMA),global system for mobile communications (GSM)and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) – all in a single, sleek hand-helddevice. At the same time, designs must be rugged and

10Concept To Reality / Spring 2007 www.altair.com/c2r

by Dr. Kinzy Jones, Doug Carroll, Phil Green,Chris Bates and Dr. Marc Zampino




P R O C E S S A U T O M A T I O N

(CAE) earlier in the design cycle. For example, thecompany is using Altair HyperWorks for up-front simulation along with prototype testing to aid in thedevelopment process. Doing so has enabled the company to capture product-life behavior, predict areas needing improvement and generate high-qualityproducts within a greatly reduced time frame.

Capturing product-life behavior is a daunting task, sosimulation is combined with prototype testing to helpin developing the product. The commonly used phraseto describe the external loading that the phonesexperience during testing is “large-motion, small-timescales.” In using simulation to aid in product development,the concern is in determining what level of detailshould be included in the model to capture the relevantphysics. Moreover, since it is extremely difficult topredict actions that will result from a 5,000-g, 0.1-msimpact pulse, intuition is of little help.

With today’s modern algorithms and vast computingpower, simulations need not be simplistic models ofthe actual problem. However, this can lead to a number of challenges when looking at even the simplest cellular phone models. Since the behaviorof many of the materials varies as the strain ratechanges, additional material modeling must be done.In addition, if manufacturing variables must be considered, the challenges are even more complex.

In any case, while it is an intimidating task to predict drop performance, it is not impossible tomanage its analysis. And, as difficult as the solutiontechniques can be, model setup is the largest contributorto the overall length of the solution process.

Up-Front DesignAt Motorola, the use and customization of

advanced CAE software have streamlined the mechanical prototype process while greatly increasingdesign robustness. Significantly decreasing simulationtime has enabled Motorola engineers to identify andcorrect potential issues early in the development cycle. Reduction in simulation cycle time is also critical to shorten time to market, which, in turn, hasa positive impact on the company’s bottom line.

Moreover, the acceleration of the model-buildingprocess allows several simulation passes on conceptgeometry before costly injection molding tools needto be built – a luxury that even two years ago wasimpossible. For example, a new cellular phone modelconsisting of more than 70 unique components took16 hours to go from geometry to a fully ready-to-runsimulation model, rather than the standard 20-daymodel development time. This is a tenfold improvementin speed in less than a year – and has removed themodel development cycle as the gating set of the prototype simulation process. Simulation can nowbecome an up-front design tool.

On average, 40 system-level drop simulations (Figure1 on page 12) are performed before a design is releasedfor plastic injection tooling. These simulations allow theengineers to understand the performance of the displays, electrical components and plastic housings.

In 2000, finite-element mesh creation, contactand constraint definition, model debugging andresult interpretation were highly manual processesand took more than two months to perform. At that time, Altair HyperWorks was chosen to automate time-consuming manual tasks, such as automated geometry cleanup, mesh generation,interference checking or post-processing. Using thesoftware resulted in significant time savingsand reduced model setup time from 20 days to onlytwo days.

built to withstand the daily equivalent of a computerworkstation and monitor taking a five-foot fall.

Like many of its competitors, Motorola is drivenby shortened design cycles, increasing product complexity and reduced profit margins. Design cyclesthat took 18 months in 1998 from drawing board toplant floor are now pushing toward a six-month goalto meet business-critical product launches and fixedship dates. Above all, to maintain a healthy profitmargin, Motorola must keep down the overall cost ofproducing the product, especially to compete incountries where wireless providers rarely subsidizethe cost of the phone.

Real-World ReliabilityTo understand “real-world” reliability well before

next-generation cell phones hit the shelves, Motorolahas increased its use of computer-aided engineering

11www.altair.com/c2r Concept To Reality / Spring 2007


Simulation plays a critical role in product development, with a broad impact from package-level simulation to system-level modeling. To putthis into perspective, typical design cycles decreasedfrom about 18 months in the late 1990s to under a year in 2005. While cycle time has compressed, the functionality of the devices hasgrown tremendously. In order to design new productsin fewer than 10 months, which is a goal at Motorola,the traditional “build-and-test” approach has beenwidely replaced by up-front simulation.

Finding Part InterferencesCellular phone models typically consist of

hundreds of components packaged within a smallspace. Often, after a mesh has been completed, thereare portions of the mesh (elements and nodes) thatinterfere with each other. These interferences occureither because of underlying geometry or result fromthe tessellation of the geometry while being meshed.Using the traditional process, an analyst needed upto three days to manually find and correct the interferences in the virtual model. Moreover, theseinterfering nodes and elements can often be nearlyimpossible to detect manually.

If these interfering elements are allowed to remainin the model, it can lead to errors during the executionof the model. This results in unacceptable delays todebug the problem – and wasted central processingunit (CPU) cycles on the compute server.

To find and correct these issues, a custom interference-checking program was built, based on Motorola’s internal requirements. The proprietary “interferencematrix” shows modeling errors in a graphical format,and the “interference solution graphical user

Figure 1. Typical FEM model of a cellular phone.

Motorola, Inc. – founded in 1928 and recognizedaround the world for innovation and leadershipin wireless and broadband communications –

pioneered mobile communications in the 1930s with carradios and public safety networks, coining the companybrand that suggests “sound in motion.” Withapproximately 68,000 employees, Motorola directs theactivities of 320 facilities in 73 countries from its globalheadquarters in Schaumburg, IL.

For more than 75 years, the company has remainedcommitted to engineering innovation. Harnessing thepower of technology convergence, Motorola made theequipment that carried the first words back from themoon in 1969. Motorola led the communicationsrevolution with the 1983 introduction of the firstcommercial cellular phone. Reportedly, the companyspends as much as 10 percent of its annual income inresearch and development efforts.

Today, Motorola offers market-changing icons ofpersonal technology and is a leader in multinode, multi-band communications products and technologies. ThePlantation, FL-based Mobile Devices division designs,manufactures, sells and services wireless subscriberand server equipment for cellular systems; portableenergy storage products and systems; servers andsoftware solutions; and related software and accessoryproducts.

At Motorola, that means designing and delivering“must-have” products, must-have experiences andpowerful networks to keep people connected.

Motorola at a Glance






Figure 4: Green color indicates a “clean” model.

interface (GUI)” supports the analyst in resolvingmesh problems.

Using the custom tool, the analyst can select thecomponents that are of interest and generate the interference matrix (Figure 2). Then, each pair ofcomponents can be visualized by selecting the appropriate box on the GUI. This generates the populated interference solution GUI. A table thendisplays the nodes that interfere, as well as theamount of the overclosure. (This is shown in whitein Figure 3).

This GUI also allows analysts to set themaster/slave relationship of the surfaces. Once all theinterference pairs are fixed, the interference matrixwill show all green (Figure 4). That signals the modelis clean and ready to run.

As a result of this automation, model checks cannow be performed in just one hour, compared to thetraditional 15 to 20 hours. This represents an approximately 80-percent to 90-percent time savings.

Automating Post-ProcessingNow that model development has been largely

automated and compute server speeds are faster thanever, post-processing of drop simulations remains themost time-consuming manual process. Interpretationof the results is the most critical step, and as such,there are no plans to automate that process. However, Motorola analysts agreed that HyperWorks’ automatic report generation – consistingof images and 3D interactive animation result filesusing Altair’s compact .h3d format – greatly speedsup the process.

Using HyperWorks’ automatic reporting capabilities,analysts were able to create a standard report of drop-simulation results. The tool creates graphical, top-leveloverviews about potential failures from high-impactforces for every part of the cell phone.

The standard report contains an isometric view ofthe phone and cross-sections of the three main axes.Designers can interactively animate the drop in 3D tovisualize the motion of the parts with a Web browseror PowerPoint using Altair HyperView Playerfreeware, a 3D web browser plug-in with ActiveXcontrols.

Figure 3. Interfering nodes.

Figure 2. A custom interference-checking program, built toMotorola’s internal requirements, speeds the model-checkingprocess. The screen above shows the interference matrix for theoverclosure process.

13www.altair.com/c2r Concept To Reality / Spring 2007



As a result, analysts and designers can quickly review the phone’s structural integrity and eliminatethe risk of “missed results” due to the simulationmodel’s complexity. The parts that have failed theirrespective material criteria are displayed on the firstpage, as are the number of failed elements. All thecomponents can be viewed by selecting ALL on thebottom of the main page. Clicking on any of thecomponents launches another page with detailed information on the component, including the valuesof interest for the entire event.

In the future, further automation of the model development process will focus on the use of AltairData Manager. This new system will allow continualupdates of the part meshes through the integration of

Using advanced model development tools, simulation hasmoved from a design validation tool to a design tool,capable of generating system-level drop simulations so

quickly that designs can be modified daily. Traditionally, cycle timeran up to eight weeks.

The model (top right) consists of 77 unique components, includingtwo LCDs and two populated printed-circuit boards. It consists ofshell, hexagonal and tetrahedral meshes.

For the first phone concept geometry, it tooktwo working days from the creation of the InitialGraphics Exchange Specification (IGES)geometry to full drop-simulation results (9.5hours running 12 CPUs on an SGI Altix computeserver). Using the automated geometry-cleanupand mesh-generation tools, it took eight hoursto clean and mesh the parts.

An additional eight to 10 hours were neededfor collision detection and correction, as well asto create surface constraints and boundaryconditions. The total time for the first conceptmodel setup was approximately 20 hours.Several simulations were run with this geometryto test early design concepts.

Improvements to the initial design, labeledConcept Two geometry, were usually available aweek after the first set of results. The models(below right) show the level of part complexity inConcepts One and Two.

Only the new or modified geometry must bemeshed, in this case, only 54 components. Ittook eight hours to go from the computer-aideddesign package exported IGES files to acompleted finite-element model that had passed a

Prototypes Now Drive Design

To receive a copy of the MotorolaHyperWorks success story, visit www.altair.com/c2r or

check 03 on the reply card.

data check. Fifteen hours were required to run one of thestandard drop orientations on 12 CPUs on the SGI Altixcompute server.

In this example, then, the model went from IGES geometry topost-processing of the .h3d file – generated using AltairHyperView Player freeware – in less than 24 hours. Advancedmodel simulation tools reduced the overall CAE cycle time fromeight weeks to 24 hours – a significant savings in time and costs.

the computer-aided design life management tool. Theavailable customization of the tool will allow for manynew additional avenues for process automation.

Dr. Kinzy Jones is a Distinguished Member of theTechnical Staff; Doug Carroll is a Distinguished Memberof the Technical Staff; Phil Green is Senior Staff Engineer;Chris Bates is Senior Staff Engineer; and Dr. MarcZampino is Principal Staff Engineer. All are part ofMotorola – iMDC’s Advanced Mechanics Group inPlantation, FL.

Concept One Back Housing Concept Two Back Housing

Models generated from automated mesh generation and collision detection.


MOTOROLA 6 dave_BB:MOTOROLA3 4/24/07 2:50 PM Page 14

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