RMCEMC Jan 2004 Meeting

1) Signal Integrity Issues for High Speed Serial Channel Design

The electrical behavior of an entire 3.2 Gigabit per Second serial channel was  analyzed using EDA software tools. The PCB traces, multi-layered vias, board-to board connectors and board-to-cable connectors are all analyzed and combined to yield a full channel model. The individual parts of the channel and their interaction are examined to predicatively re-design the channel for maximum bandwidth.

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Proper understanding and mitigation of power and ground plane behavior has become increasingly important as PCB designs incorporate increasing trace density, increasing layer counts, and tightened operational specifications. Traditional analysis methods have been insufficient to rapidly address true distributed power and ground structure behavior, requiring the application of general .rules-of-thumb. as preventative decoupling strategies. A new two-dimensional finite-element solution technology now permits true analysis of even complex power and ground configurations, allowing direct pre- or post-route analysis of various decoupling options. This paper will outline the solution technology, provide verification comparisons to measurements to validate its accuracy, and propose a design methodology that may allow more optimized, cost-effective decoupling strategies.

Brad Brim: Brad left Washington State University in Pullman, WA in 1983. After completing his BSEE Brad pursued graduate studies on analytical and numerical aspects of high frequency scattering during his MSEE program. Brad pursued a PhD in Electrical Engineering through 1988 at the University of Colorado in Boulder. His research involved numerical modeling of high frequency printed circuits. In 1988 Brad joined the CAE group of Hewlett Packard Company in Santa Rosa, CA, which later became a part of Agilent Technologies. He initially worked on transmission line and discontinuity models for high frequency circuit simulators. He later worked as a developer for the initial releases of both Momentum and HP-HFSS. Brad later became responsible for product marketing activities for EM design tools in the EEsof division of HP. In 2000 he joined Ansoft Corporation in Boulder, CO as an Applications Engineer in the area of High Frequency Design. In 2001 Brad changed roles to product marketing for HFSS.

Richard Remski: Richard graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1988 with a Bachelor's of EE specializing in microwave and antenna studies. He worked for almost a decade doing avionics and antenna design for several military aerospace programs including the F-16, A-12, B-2, F-22, and V-22 vehicles. He joined Ansoft in 1997 as an Application Engineer and now serves as an Application Engineering Manager in the Southern region, performing customer interaction, support, training, and Q/A for both high-frequency RF field analysis and Signal Integrity products. Although initially trained to think in the frequency domain he does occasionally now speak in the time domain as well.