A PCB transmission line comprises at least two conductors – one for the signal and another for its return path. Complex circuit board nets are the combinations of such simpler transmission line structures. Understanding these structures (microstrip, stripline, and...
Before we start with today’s article, something needs to get engraved in your mind. If some current goes out somewhere, it will always return to the source, with no exceptions. Hence, there is always a current loop, a current return path, along with the...
Measuring impedance and checking for faults and discontinuities on different points of a PCB trace is not a cakewalk. This is because impedance is an AC property and cannot be measured like resistance. Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR) impedance measurements are...
Miniaturization of the copper features in electronic circuits results from placing interconnections closely with a high packing density. As a result, crosstalk in HDI PCB substrate comes at play because of the increased coupling between the adjacent signal lines. HDI...
The designers are constantly challenged to improve the performance of an electronic product. At the same time, the designers need to consider the effects of high-speed signals in a PCB design since continuously increasing clock frequencies and decreasing rise times...
Avoiding signal integrity issues in a PCB is an extremely complex task for designers. It requires a deep understanding of signal integrity design rules and techniques. With the introduction of faster logic families, the designers have realized that simple PCB layouts...
Electromagnetic interference (EMI) is associated with every electronic device we use nowadays. If you turn on your radio set and TV simultaneously, you will experience the noisy disturbance from TV interfering with the radio signal and vice-versa. We can also...
Signal Integrity (SI) signifies the signal’s ability to propagate along PCB traces without distortion. Signal integrity is about the quality of the signal passing through a transmission line. In this article, Tim Wang Lee acknowledges some of the designers’ pain...
When a signal is transmitted, the received signal will always be distorted as a consequence of impedance and other effects. This is why designers work towards minimizing effects on the signal quality. Designers try to achieve signal integrity by limiting the extent to...