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Articles and Applications Notes

PCB Design and Signal Integrity

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In the early 90’s I drafted something for what was known (at the time) as the “Back Page” in PCB Design Magazine. This was a light‐hearted feature in every issue of the magazine that was at least tangentially related to the industry, but was meant to be humorous. Pete Waddell was the editor of the magazine at that time. The contribution still stands as one of my favorite works, “Flying Electrons.” It caught Pete’s eye, and Pete invited me to put on a seminar at PCB East. And that’s what started it all. Since then I have written almost 100 articles and applications notes, three books, two booklets, and presented some 30 to 40 seminars around the world. A lot of that has been reprinted on the UltraCAD Design, Inc. Web pages, but all that stuff now poses some problems: some are repetitive; some are outdated; most are difficult to wade through and find the most appropriate article for the moment. So this publication reflects my efforts at sifting through it all and organizing it. The papers in these chapters are, in my humble estimation, the best ones. The repetitive ones have been culled out, the ones that have not stood the test of time have been culled out, and the ones that were incorrect (!) have been thrown out. What remain are the ones that are still relevant and important. They range from a couple that are quite short (2 or 3 pages) to quite long (some 20 or more pages); from very technical with lots of equations and figures to some that are humorous, almost slapstick. A few are broadly based articles, covering a topic in an overview manner. But most are targeted at a specific problem or issue. And (almost) all the articles are related to printed circuit board design, and most are related to signal integrity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 0 Background 1. What is this Thing Called “Current” 2. A History of Signal Integrity on PCBs 3. SI Disagree 1. Transmission Lines and Impedance 4. Rise Time vs Frequency 5. Rise Time vs Harmonics 6. Transmission Line Basics 7. Transmission Line Terminations 8. Termination Placement 9. Branching Traces 1a Propagation Time 10. Adjusting Signal Timing 1 11. Adjusting Signal Timing 2 12. Propagations Times and Critical Length 13. Microstrip Propagation Time 1b Skin Effect and Lossy Lines 14. Skinny On Skin Effect, Part 1 15. Skinny On Skin Effect, Part 2 16. Skinny On Skin Effect, Part 3 17. Lossy Lines and Eye Diagrams 2. Differential Signals, Traces, and Impedance 18. Differential Impedance 19. Differential Trace Design Rules 3. EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) 20. Electromagnetic Fields Basics 21. Crosstalk EMI and differential Z 22. Loop Area 23. Slots in Planes 24. Electromagnetic Fields 4. Crosstalk 25. Crosstalk in 3 Parts 26. Understanding Crosstalk Part 1 27. Understanding Crosstalk Part 2 28. How Loud is Your Crosstalk 29. Crosstalk Coupling To/Between Differential Pairs 5. Power Conditioning (Bypass Caps) 30. Ground Bounce 31. This Months Quiz 32. ESR and Bypass Caps 6. Resistance, Reactance, and Impedance 33. Resistance 34. Reactance 35. Impedance 7. PCB Temperatures 36. Stop Relating Temperature to Current Density 37. Thermal Vias Are Not Very Effective 8. Other/Misc 38. 90 Degree Corners 39. How To Gauge Traces 40. RMS 41. What Is Accuracy 9. Humor 42. Recounting Electrons 43. Of Flying Electrons 44. Going In and Going Out Electrons 45. Government PCB Design Subsidies 46. Digital Food and Low Fat Electrons 47. Smart Electrons Highly recommended by the author.