Go to PCB/Interconnect Design Sessions
Radar/Automotive/SATCOM Sessions
Signal Integrity/Power Integrity Sessions
5G/Wi-Fi/IoT
The Promises (and Pitfalls) of Open RAN Architecture
The disaggregation of the radio access network (RAN) into multiple subsystems with open interfaces between them is revolutionizing the cellular wireless architecture.
With the O-RAN Alliance, Telecom Infrastructure Project (TIP), and other bodies leading the way, the industry is witnessing a burst of activity in standardizing the behavior of Open RAN interfaces, facilitating the development and adoption of individual subsystems, and interoperability.
Numerous companies, including non-traditional players in the telecom space, have joined the movement and are participating in the standardization effort.
This talk will provide a bird’s-eye view of the Open RAN movement. What does the Open RAN architecture look like? What makes it so enticing to the industry as a whole? What are some of the pitfalls that lie ahead? We will cover these and other pertinent questions in this session and also discuss the future of Open RAN.
When Do I Get My 5G and What Does That Mean for the Compound Semiconductor Industry?
The wireless industry is renowned for developing the next generation of wireless networks about every ten years, but it seems like we have already been talking about 5G for ten years, so where is it? While that statement is a bit of an exaggeration, the path between concept and implementation can sometimes get a bit rocky. This presentation looks at how 5G infrastructure, user equipment and subscriber growth is progressing. I will present Strategy Analytics’ latest forecasts for base station sector deployments and we will investigate some frequency and technology segmentations.
The last point is particularly important for the compound semiconductor industry. In addition to the technology forecasts, the presentation will explore some of the trends, drivers and trade-offs that will shape the trajectory of compound semiconductor revenue in this segment. We will close with a quick look at 6G and how the wireless industry expects this evolution to augment the reality of the 5G vision.
Technical Considerations for Testing 5G Base Station Finals for Digital Pre-distortion (DPD) Characterization
The increased bandwidth and peak to average ratios of the 5G physical layer has amplified the need for accurate DPD characterization. Wide band DPD systems are in extensive development. Final amplifier stage gain can be as low as 10 dB. To accurately characterize its distortion, high power linear RF drive is required. This signal should provide a near distortion-free 3GPP test model. Peak to average ratio of these test models may exceed 14 dB. Class A amplifiers are the expected solution. This presentation will discuss applicable amplifier specifications such as P1dB in addition to parameters of the entire RF chain.
Reveal the True Performance of Your Wi-Fi 6E Modules
Wi-Fi 6 chipsets and devices harness the latest wireless standard with improved capabilities and performance. Enabling metrics such as faster data throughput and greater network efficiency may be favorable for consumers, but it places considerable demands on Wi-Fi module characterization and compliance testing. When faced with test equipment that is not up for the task, engineers often resort to testing compromises, threatening measurement accuracy. Channel bandwidths up to 160 MHz require instrumentation with adequate video bandwidth (VBW), modulation techniques necessitate statistical depictions, and long data streams with MIMO architectures demand time gating, extended measurement times, and multi-channel time alignment. This workshop will describe the various challenges associated with Wi-Fi chipset characterization, as well as their corresponding solutions that enable accurate power measurements to reveal the true performance of the latest generation of Wi-Fi modules.
How to Evaluate Shielding Absorbers for IoT/Wireless Products
Self-interference to IoT, cellular and wireless receivers from on-board energy sources, such as DC-DC converters, has become a real challenge for manufacturers. One possible mitigation is to absorb some of this radiated energy using ferrite absorber material, but manufacturers of this material usually don’t provide adequate absorption or shielding data. The presentation will describe a simple way to quickly characterize various materials to help determine the best one to use, based on receiver frequency. An interesting case study will also be described.
Latest Trends in 5G Deployments
In 2021, 5G networks continue to ramp up in scale, scope, and sophistication. With already hundreds of millions of users worldwide, 5G is the fastest growing generation of wireless cellular networks, far surpassing the adoption rate of 4G LTE before it. What opportunities and challenges lie ahead for 5G network deployments?
How will trends in 5G technology and architecture, such as Open RAN, 5G standalone, and radio improvements such as massive MIMO and beamforming impact this growth rate?
How will other factors like new spectrum availability and network densification lead to an acceleration of 5G adoption?
What regulatory opportunities and challenges exist in the North American marketplace?
Will new business and consumer use cases help to drive further adoption – and if so, which industries are likely to see the most aggressive growth?.
5G Communications for IoT
There are challenges to implementing 5G in the standard mobile form-factor. Space is already limited and 5G comprises two major frequency bands requiring different antenna technologies. The higher band, mm-wave, requires special attention to achieve good overall coverage and pass certifications. Beam forming techniques, material selection and additional antenna modules need careful evaluation.
In this presentation, we will share details on how electromagnetic simulation enables device developers to overcome the complexity and achieve optimal antenna design and placement to ensure a product meets all of its connectivity, regulatory and safety requirements. 5G simulation with SIMULIA CST Studio Suite and high performance computing can help meet the very short product cycles typical of high tech consumer devices.
5G IoT: Market Drivers and Challenges
This presentation will outline the broad trend toward 5G IoT market adoption, including examples of low-latency and high-reliability applications and technical solutions that are necessary for success. A key focus will center on the business factors that must converge and the likely size of the market.
Could 5G Wirelessly Deliver Power to IoT Devices?
5G has been designed for blazing fast and low-latency communications. To do so, mm-wave frequencies were adopted and allowed unprecedently high radiated power densities by the FCC. Unknowingly, the architects of 5G have, thereby, created a wireless power grid capable of powering devices at ranges far exceeding the capabilities of any existing technologies. However, this potential could only be realized if a fundamental trade-off in wireless energy harvesting could be circumvented. In this talk, I present the solution that breaks the usual paradigm, imprisoned in the trade-off between rectenna angular coverage and turn-on sensitivity. The concept relies on the implementation of a Rotman lens between the antennas and the rectifiers. The printed, flexible mm-wave rectenna achieves a robust and bending-resilient operation, a combination of large angular coverage and high turn-on sensitivity—in both planar and bent conditions—and a long-range harvesting capability. This technology will enable 5G to power the next generation of IoT devices at ranges exceeding 180 m.
PCB/Interconnect Design
Semi-Additive PCB Process: New Possibilities From PCB Design to Product Performance
Historically, Semi-Additive PCB processing (SAP) has only been available – and practical – for a narrow range of high-volume consumer electronics applications. Now these processes have been implemented at selected facilities in the USA: qualified fabricators can serve a variety of market segments, including high-mix low-volume applications and quick-turn delivery. This breakthrough advancement opens new possibilities for the PCB industry, from design to end-product performance.
Traditional subtractive-etch fabrication processes carry constraints on line width and space, driving complexity in PCB designs constrained with tight pin-out requirements. Advanced semi-additive processes reset that technology curve, allowing fabricators to manufacture with 25-micron trace and space – and below.
This session will open with an overview of the size, weight and power (SWOP) advantages to advanced semi-additive processes, then take a deeper dive: to focus on improvements in signal integrity, performance, and impedance control. There are distinct benefits with taller, narrower traces, so we will introduce design considerations for routing narrower lines. Our session will conclude with real-world case studies, illustrating how these fine feature sizes are successfully applied to realize next-generation electronics.
Benchtop Troubleshooting Process for Radiated Immunity
Radiated immunity has started to become very common and is nearly impossible to set up in-house without great expense and trained test operators. Often it involves endless cycles back and forth between adding random fixes in-house and then running back to the compliance test lab. This delay can negatively affect product introductions. This presentation will describe a simple method for troubleshooting and mitigating immunity issues right on the lab bench. Often, the root cause is due to interconnecting cables acting as receive antennas and coupling RF energy into sensitive circuits. Two interesting case studies will also be described.
Ground Stitching and Copper Balancing for High Performance SI Evaluation Kits
High-performance I/O interfaces offer small design margin for physical channel impairments such as routing impedance discontinuities and crosstalk. Mitigation techniques commonly deployed in single-purpose test/evaluation boards include thieving pads (copper balance and etch control) and stitching vias (crosstalk reduction and optimal return path). For critical high-speed nets, best practices combine these as “stitched thieving” in a parade-route configuration along the routing net. This approach is not trivial, and it becomes more challenging as designs complexity increases such as in multi-layer PCBs with BGA breakouts. In this workshop, Ted Ballou details strategies for managing layout challenges and addressing practical design constraints. Additionally, he will provide an apples-to-apples comparison of measured results with “before” and “after” PCB design iterations.
Accelerating RF PCB System Development
Most RF/mixed-signal PCB design and system integration requires a workflow that not only supports interoperability between the design tool responsible for RF/microwave IP creation and the manufacturing/signoff platform, but also properly manages SMD library parts, padstacks, and technology files in order to avoid time-consuming, error prone, manual translation flows. This presentation will examine the requirements for a more robust RF-to-PCB layout workflow, focusing on design-for-manufacturing requirements typically managed within the layout tool itself. RF engineers will learn more about PCB layout and manufacturing CAD concerns that improve and accelerate handoff from RF design to PCB layout.
HDI Usage Considerations
With the pitch of parts getting tighter and the pin count of BGAs going up, there is a need to get as much routing as possible into very dense areas of the board. HDI helps many people accomplish that, by allowing a much larger number of signals to escape the BGAs. However, there are a few specific things that one needs to understand about the technology in order to use it successfully. We will discuss when and why to make the jump to HDI, some issues that need special attention, and getting the fabricator involved early in the design process. Then we will cover a few manufacturing issues, and go over some things that can cause microvias to fail.
Building and Using Numerical and Analytical Models in PCB Interconnect Optimization
PCB optimization focuses on designing boards to meet specific performance metrics while satisfying specific design constraints. In particular, interconnect design requires satisfying multiple design objectives and constraints that may be in conflict, and engineers need tools and methods to help them balance design these objectives while staying within their design constraints. For ultra-high-speed boards, designers need to optimize transmission line designs within the relevant signal bandwidth, which can extend to hundreds of GHz. Newer signaling specifications and standards (e.g., USB4, DDR5, and IEEE 802.3 standards) require this type of optimization. In this presentation, the use of model extraction, design exploration, and fusion of analytical/numerical models will be presented with the goal of developing models for broadband design optimization. For PCB transmission lines, a model that accounts for copper roughness and dispersion with numerical or analytical impedance models will be presented. These concepts fit within recent research on novel CAD and field solver methodologies to address high speed/high frequency interconnect design challenges.
RF Performance Comparisons between Microstrip and Grounded Coplanar Waveguide at mmWave Frequencies
It is common for RF applications using PCB technology at microwave frequencies to use microstrip circuit structures. However, as the frequency increases, at higher microwave frequencies and millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies, there are increased RF performance issues for the RF designer to consider. In theory, the Grounded Coplanar Waveguide (GCPW) circuit structure addresses many of the mmWave design concerns. Although, in practice, there are multiple influences which can impact mmWave RF performance due to PCB manufacturing and the RF performance of GCPW is more impacted than microstrip.
This presentation will give an overview of the basic RF performance of microstrip and GCPW, in the range of microwave and mmWave frequencies. Following the overview, several topics will be explained which are related to mmWave design concerns with an emphasis on several common PCB fabrication processes which can influence RF performance of microstrip and GCPW differently. Measured RF data up to 80+ GHz will be shown to illustrate many of the concepts discussed.
What Is DFX, Why Is It so Important, and Who Should Do It?
How much do you want to spend on your design?
The first priority of most fabrication and assembly companies is to keep their costs down. It should be the priority of the PCB Design Team as well. To do that, it’s important to know what areas increase fab and assembly costs and what are the options available to mitigate these costs. And not create an undesired degradation of the electrical circuit.
Good DFX checking is the key! When you design for Fab, Assembly, and Test, two things become important:
- Team Planning
- Communication Methodology
This Technical Session will cover the Tips & Tricks of good DFX no matter what software tools you have.
Avoiding Board Fabrication Pitfalls in High Speed & RF Designs
Today’s fine-pitch components and high speed digital and RF designs often push the limits of material and circuit board fabrication capabilities. Creating stack-ups that meet both customer requirements and fabricator capabilities are sometimes like solving multiple-solution puzzles without knowing about all the pieces. This presentation will discuss misunderstood pieces and how things can go wrong when they are not put together correctly. Q&A will include Andy Cameron, Field Applications Engineer at TTM Technologies.
Aerosol Jet Digitally Printed Interconnects for mmWave RF Devices
As the frequency of RF packages climb up and beyond 60 GHz, microstrip and waveguide line widths diminish with substrate thickness and the limitations of traditional interconnect bonding techniques reach their limitations. Printed 3D Interconnects made with Aerosol Jet® printing provide package designers and RF engineers a new tool to tailor the impedance of transition interconnects, designing the loss characteristics to the application need and eliminating the need to compensate for poor signal through loss and back reflection behavior driven by impedance mismatch. Printed 3D interconnects made with Aerosol Jet can be digitally designed to be any shape or thickness and with line widths as thin as 10 microns and thinner than 1 micron it is capable of handling RF interconnect needs well above 100GHz. All of this enables the interconnect itself to be designed into the package, similar to the microstrip or die circuit design it will be interconnecting. Finally, the interconnects are conformal to the surface of the package, minimizing trace length and eliminating air gaps between the interconnect and the substrates ground plane lowering transition loss by up to 50%. Examples demonstrating this up to 110 GHz will be shared along with the process and equipment used to perform it.
Radar/Automotive/SATCOM
Advanced Simulation Tools for Automotive Radar Integration and Virtual Drive Tests
Automotive OEMs are moving towards the inclusion of several safety systems, which are covered by several sensors. Many new functions are being added to assist the driver to avoid accidents that might be caused by different road scenarios. The new ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) systems are mainly: lane change assistants (LCA), blind spot detection (BSD), pedestrian recognition, collision avoidance and pre-crash functions, cross traffic alerts and parking assistance. Automotive Collision Avoidance Radars operate at 77GHz band. Radar design and integration at such high frequencies is very challenging. As a result, electromagnetic (EM) simulation is applied to avoid time consuming and expensive prototyping cycles for the radar manufacturer and a complex radar integration behind a car‘s bumper for automotive OEMs. In this talk, a detailed design process for automotive radar design and integration will be presented using Altair’s advanced EM simulation solutions. Also, this talk will present simulations of radar channel and the environment for better understanding of the functioning of the radar in real driving scenarios using virtual drive test simulations using Altair’s advanced simulation solutions.
Drone Based Mobile Quantum Links
Quantum links have been demonstrated using satellite and fiber. Here, we propose a new type of quantum link using drones, for mobile connections with high flexibility. We demonstrate the first drone-based entanglement distribution, to work in multi-weather conditions including daytime and rainy nights. Moreover, we show that the drones node can be interconnected in air, to form an optical relay against the diffraction loss, and extend the link distances. Such mobile quantum links can be built in different scales for broad and extensive quantum coverage.
Residual Phase Noise Measurement of Components for Advanced Radar Systems
Phase noise becomes an increasingly important system-level specification for electronic test equipment, communications systems, and radar systems. Modern radar systems are trying to extract more information about the targets they track and provide the ability to track even slow moving targets in the presence of clutter. The lower the phase noise, the better this will work.
However, for system and design engineers, it is not only important to quantify the phase noise produced by local oscillators, but also the phase noise added by each component in the signal processing chain. This webinar reviews the fundamentals of residual or additive phase noise and addresses measurement techniques for determining the amplitude (AM) and phase noise added by two-port devices such as: amplifiers, mixers, block frequency converters, multipliers, dividers, and frequency synthesizers
A New Approach to Radar Signal Analysis
Secondary surveillance radar (SSR) and Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) radar are essential tools for safe and secure aviation. While the radar systems have evolved, many of the test challenges have remained constant. Depending upon whether one is designing, characterizing, installing, maintaining, or troubleshooting an SSR system, one may have different requirements for testing the radio frequency (RF) transmission. As a result, different instrumentation is often used based on which task is being completed or the same equipment is used throughout requiring users to accept compromises. The former leads to higher equipment costs, the latter inefficiency and lower productivity. This workshop will introduce a new approach to these test challenges where the same test equipment can be used throughout, without the compromises.
Scanning Radar Horizons: Near & Far
Once a relatively staid technology discipline where innovation timelines were measured in years, radar has seen an unprecedented rate of growth and proliferation fueled by many disparate markets including the military/civil, UAVs, automotive, autonomous vehicles both ground-based and airborne, commercial products and medical—to name a few. Military radars are continuing to evolve ever more sophisticated capabilities such as waveform agility/adaptivity, advanced high-power operation, and new cognitive operating capabilities. Moreover, this is a major thrust in developing radars and other RF systems specifically for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that places a premium on low cost, size, weight and power (C-SWAP). The commercial sector is likewise experiencing significant growth in similar areas in the automotive and UAS detection and tracking industries. This talk will provide an up to date overview of these recent trends with a contemplation on what’s in store for the future. Specific topics include:
- Cognitive radar
- Advanced waveform adaptivity/agility
- MIMO radar advances
- Low C-SWAP radars including RFSoCs
- Advanced embedded computing and signal processing
Today’s Satellite Broadband Landscape: LEOs, MEOs, GEOs and Megaconstellations
In a connected society, it is challenging to fathom that the year 2019 marked the first year in which more than half the world had access to the Internet. For decades, but in particular the past ten years, tremendous efforts from governments and the private sector have been made to bring more individuals online, and to realize the economic and arguably social benefits of a connected culture. In this session, Whitney Lohmeyer, the first engineer at OneWeb, will discuss the technological progress and system design of the satellite communications sector, focusing on today’s planned and deployed satellite networks. These will include low earth orbit (LEO) constellations like OneWeb, SpaceX’s Starlink, and Amazon’s Kuiper, along with medium earth orbit (MEO) networks like SES’ mPower and Mangata Networks, as well as geostationary (GEO) networks like Viasat and Echostar (HughesNet). In addition to system design, technical challenges like coexistence issues amongst LEO megaconstellations, terrestrial and radio astronomy services (RAS) will be discussed.
ADAS Sensor Design & Placement
Modern vehicles contain countless antennas and sensors which are crucial to the overall performance and safety of autonomous and assisted driving systems. All these components need not only function correctly in isolation, but also in close proximity to one another. System integrators cannot rely on combining all these systems in the prototype phase as late stage failure this late in the development process would be prohibitively expensive to rectify. Electromagnetic simulation of the systems throughout the entire development cycle is crucial to achieve peak performance and full compatibility with both regulations and other systems at play. SIMULIA offers state of the art simulation tools starting with the design of the antenna and sensor system, evaluating placement of said components on a vehicle, evaluating the potential for co-site interference and even considering the safety of the human occupants of the vehicle. In this webinar we will touch on some of the common challenges and how our customers address these in production today.
Bigger Than You Are: The Emerging Role of Fractal Superscatterers
Metamaterials present emerging roles in contemporary RF applications. This talk describes one important application, specifically fractal metamaterials, as enhanced reflectors. Gain enhancement at selected and controllable frequencies can be substantial, meriting the moniker ‘superscatterers’. Looked at as radar targets, superscatterers can present a radar cross section(RCS) far greater than that expected from the surface geometry and area. Superscatterers are the opposite of radar stealth: objects look bigger than they are. The application of these superscatterers is key. For example, in vehicular applications, these tiny fractal-based superscatterers can be installed in visible light road reflectors and or embedded on any variety of motorway objects, vehicles, and garments. This provides ability to mark roadways and object to enable a uniquely radar-based autonomous vehicular control—making lidar approaches obsolete. Similarly, such superscatterers can act as radar ‘license plates’ for small and even large satellites, lending a solution to the problematic issue of identifying and tracking space assets at otherwise marginal or absent radar SINR.
Comparison of Radar and Lidar Sensors for Autonomous Vehicles – Performance and Market Trends
Radar and LiDAR sensors are the key sensors for the future autonomous vehicles enabling the detection of vehicles, people and other moving or fixed objects around the vehicle. Recent advances in these fields have significantly improved their performance and features. This talk will discuss the technologies used and applications of these sensors for self-driving-vehicles (SDV).
Radar is a more mature option for the autonomous vehicles, while LiDAR represents a newer option offering higher resolution, accuracy, and imaging quality. A comparison between the two sensors as well as potential complementation will be discussed.
The technology as well as market landscape of this field is changing. However there remain significant challenges ahead which need to be handled in a timely and cost-effective manner. This talk will cover some of these challenges and present market trends for both options.
Designing and Optimizing an Inmarsat RF Front End Using an RF Transceiver With Digital Pre-Distortion
Radios can be brought to market quickly by designing market specific RF fronts ends for use with multi-market transceivers that cover a frequency range from 30 MHz to 6 GHz. We will be showing how to develop an Troposcatter (4.4-5 GHz) transceiver using Wolfspeed PA’s and a SOM that includes an ADI transceiver.
Signal Integrity/Power Integrity
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt – An Irreverent View of 224 Gbps Channel Data Rates
The road to 224 Gbps channel data rates is filled with twists, turns and fender-rattling potholes. Design challenges including modulation schemes, IC packaging, breakout regions, PCB stack-up, laminate selection, mechanical concerns, thermal mitigation and more are obstacles that must be overcome. In this keynote, Samtec will review the roadblocks of 224 Gbps performance while presenting novel solutions that exceed the demands of next generation data transmission.
Power Integrity: Layer Stackup and Decoupling to Achieve a Target Impedance
There are many choices in PCB power integrity design to achieve a specified voltage ripple, or target impedance. For the power net, this includes on which layer(s) to locate it, spacing between the power net and closest ground, and special materials for embedded capacitance. For decoupling, design choices include capacitor location, value(s), interconnect geometry, and total number needed. Typically, PI design is also constrained by high-speed routing considerations to avoid any compromise of routing flexibility. This often prohibits optimizing choices for minimizing inductance in the PI design process. This session begins with a brief overview of the inductance physics and relationship to the current path from the decoupling capacitors to the IC package. Then, it covers the relationship of each inductance piece to the power distribution network impedance. Finally, it presents a systematic approach for determining a layer stackup and a decoupling solution addressing typical design choices.
Antenna and Circuit Modeling for High-Speed Communication in 5G and SatCom Applications
The performance of microwave and millimeter-wave antennas and circuits plays a key role in the application area of satellite communication and the 5G mobile network for high-data-rate communication. The evaluation of such devices before fabrication and testing through electromagnetics simulation tools is beneficial to reduce the time and effort required in the design process during the development cycle.
In this session, you will see a live demonstration in the COMSOL Multiphysics® software, showing how to set up and run a simulation to design and evaluate a grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) line. The live demo also introduces a fast and efficient modeling workflow for phased antenna analysis using a periodic unit cell model.
Achieving 10X Performance for Next-Generation Signal and Power Integrity Analysis
Cadence® Sigrity™ X, the latest signal integrity (SI)/power integrity (PI) software release, includes faster engines, distributed computing, and a new user interface. In addition, a new methodology for performing PI across multiple fabrics is now available. This presentation introduces how the new Sigrity X distributed computing architecture is meeting the demands of SI/PI engineers across the 5G communications, automotive, hyperscale computing, and aerospace and defense industries.
The Influence of Connectivity on Low Impedance Measurements
Engineers connect a VNA to a circuit board for low-impedance measurements using a variety of methods.
These methods primarily include connectors, probes, and soldered pigtails. Each of these methods has advantages and disadvantages, and no one solution is best in all cases. In this session both qualitative and quantitative assessments are presented for each method, highlighting the limitations, and providing tips to optimize the measurement accuracy. In addition to connectivity on the probe side of the measurement, the PCB side is also considered and several options for connectivity are presented.
This Is Why You Need To Worry About Terminations
The first rule of engineering transmission lines is to build a controlled impedance interconnect. The second rule is to implement a termination strategy for the interconnects based on the routing topology and the drivers and receivers. In our Advanced PCB Design class, we use a simple demonstration test board to illustrate the perils of bad termination and how one small change can dramatically improve signal quality. We also bring the scope measurements into a simulation environment and do a direct measurement-simulation correlation. I will show examples of measurements from this test board and how we are able to achieve excellent measurement-simulation correlation using extracted driver models.
5 Steps to a Real-time Eye Diagram
For digital designers, eye diagrams and its measurements help to analysis quickly how good the signal quality is. However, this can be cumbersome to setup and maybe even daunting to some. Join us, where we quickly go through the basics and then explore the five steps needed to get to a real time eye diagram. Topics such as signal preparation, CDR, mask tests and histograms and cable loss deembedding will be covered. This webinar is intended for engineers who work on the design and testing of high-speed interfaces.
Anatomy, Modeling and Simulation of High Performance Vias: Why It Hasn’t Mattered Until Now
Drilled vias are an essential component of high-performance design. However, opinions vary on best practices for designing via transitions. The ultimate design goal of maximum performance and minimum crosstalk while maintaining measurement accuracy can be elusive. In this course, Scott McMorrow will dissect via design, compare via optimization techniques and outline PCB material models necessary for the correlation of simulated and measured results for high-performance vias.
Partial Inductance – The Secret to Correlating Simulation and Measurement
There’s confusion about the measurement of capacitors, and particularly the series inductance or ESL. Different manufacturers calibrate or de-embed their measurement differently, making it difficult to compare one vendor to another. The differences between these measurements represent different locations of the measurement reference plane.
When correlating EM simulation and measurement results, where should the reference plane be for the capacitor measurement? Why does the target impedance measurement show much higher inductance than the simulator? Why do some experts recommend measuring impedance from both sides of the PCB and not just one side? In this session, Steve Sandler, Heidi Barnes and I will provide analysis that answers all of these questions and more!