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High-Speed PCB Design

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High-Speed PCB Design

PCB Bus Routing and Layout: The Basics PCB Bus Routing and Layout: The Basics Power supply on a network switch Modern computing simply wouldn’t be possible without PCB bus routing and layout. The same goes for many digital systems that manipulate data in parallel. If you’re working on a new PCB design and you need to route a bus between different devices, there are some simple rules to follow to ensure your signals aren’t distorted and that successive devices are triggered correctly. As some designers may question the Read Article
High Speed Routing Guidelines for Advanced PCBs High Speed Routing Guidelines for Advanced PCBs You can create this advanced board with these high speed routing guidelines for advanced PCBs Newer designs are continuing to get faster, with PCIe 5.0 reaching 32 Gb/s, and PAM4 pushing signal integrity and speeds to the limit. Proper interconnect design must account for the lower noise margins of advanced devices, impeccable power stability requirements, and much more to ensure signals can be received properly. With advanced devices running at Read Article
TE Connectivity Paving the Way into 100 GBps Data Rates TE Connectivity Paving the Way into 100 GBps Data Rates and Devices In this podcast episode Nathan Tracy & Justin Pickel from TE Connectivity discuss their roles in bringing us data rates of 100 gigabits per second, the challenges this creates, and how to solve them. Read Article
Delay Tuning for High Speed Signals: What You Need to Know Delay Tuning for High Speed Signals: What You Need to Know Length matched lines in a PCB Take a look at two signal readouts on an oscilloscope, and you can see how length/timing mismatches between signal traces can improperly trigger downstream gates. The situation becomes worse when we look at the travel time for a master clock signal and the roundtrip time for sent/received data in different computer interfaces. SDRAM has solved this nicely by placing a clock in the slave device and sending a clock Read Article
Radiated EMI Sources in High Speed/High Frequency PCBs Radiated EMI Sources in High Speed/High Frequency PCBs The image above shows a snapshot of results from an EMC test under CISPR requirements (U.S. uses FCC certification requirements). This product is right at the edge of Class B limits on radiated emissions. We can see a very complicated resonance spectrum in this plot with a large number of sharp peaks superimposed on wide peaks at lower level. What causes all of this radiated noise? There a number of sources that can cause this type of emission Read Article
Follow Your Multilayer Ground Return Path to Prevent EMI Follow Your Multilayer Ground Return Path to Prevent EMI Following the path back to ground can quickly become complex in a complicated multilayer PCB. When your PCB has a small layer count (e.g., a 4-layer board with two plane layers), it becomes rather easy to determine the return path and deliberately design it to prevent EMI. The situation becomes more complicated when you’re working with higher layer counts. Multiple plane layers and conductors can form the ground return path, even if the conductor Read Article
Signal Distortion in Your PCB: Sources and Solutions Signal Distortion in Your PCB: Sources and Solutions Length matching for high-speed signals is all about synchronization... Signal distortion often gets a passing mention in many discussions on signal integrity and circuit analysis. As more networking products start running at higher speeds and use complicated modulation schemes, you’ll find that signal distortion becomes a serious problem that contributes to bit error rates. Distortion sources are cited as one of the primary bottlenecks preventing Read Article
Length Matching for High-speed Signals: Trombone, Accordion, and Sawtooth Tuning Length Matching for High-speed Signals: Trombone, Accordion, and Sawtooth Tuning Once upon a time, length matching guidelines for high-speed signals required a designer with enough skill to remain productive when manually applying different trace-length turning schemes. With today's advanced interactive routing features in modern PCB design tools, designers no longer need to manually draw out length tuning structures in a PCB layout. The remaining choice for a designer is deciding which length-matching scheme to use: trombone Read Article
Never Cross a Ground Plane Gap in High Speed PCB Design Never Cross a Ground Plane Gap in High Speed PCB Design I often browse electronics and PCB forums, and I see the same question asked over and over: Why shouldn’t I route a trace over a split in my ground plane? This question gets asked by everyone from makers to professional designers who are just dipping their toes into high speed PCB design. For the professional signal integrity engineer, the answer should be obvious. Whether you’re a long-time PCB layout engineer or a casual designer, it helps to Read Article
Tools for Transient Signal Analysis in Circuit Design Tools for Transient Signal Analysis in Circuit Design You can perform transient signal analysis with any of these circuits with the right simulator. I still remember my first differential equations class. One of the first topics that was discussed was damped oscillator circuits and transient signal response, which arises in many different physical systems. A transient response in an interconnect and on power rails in your PCB is a source of bit errors, timing jitter, and other signal integrity Read Article
What is the Return Current Path in a PCB? What is the Electrical Return Path in a PCB? One of the fundamental aspects of any circuit diagram is the return current path or electrical return path. In a circuit diagram and a schematic diagram, the path the current follows to return to the low potential side of a power source should be obvious, but it may not be so obvious in a PCB. To quote the great Eric Bogatin at his PCB West 2019 presentation, the distinction between a schematic diagram and a PCB layout lives in the white space of Read Article
Automotive Telematics System Design Automotive Telematics Systems Design In 2015, the cost of the electronics in a new car surpassed the cost of raw steel for the first time in history. We shouldn’t be surprised; the increasing number of electronic systems placed in cars over time made this change in cost structure inevitable. As cars become more autonomous, more connected, and include more creature comforts, this trend is only going to continue. After the OnStar system was popularized by General Motors in the 1990s Read Article
Damping and Reflection Transfer with a Series Termination Resistor Damping and Reflection Transfer with a Series Termination Resistor Trace, source, and load impedance matching are important in boards that contain transmission lines. To reach these conditions, you may see some designs that use a series termination resistor on single-ended transmission lines. The reasoning for doing this is sometimes to slow down a signal, or sometimes to set the driver's output impedance, depending who you ask. As surprising as it might be, the placement of series resistors for termination are Read Article
Backplane bus and connector arrangement Signal Integrity Simulations for Backplane Bus and Connectors Modern embedded computing systems that interconnect a large number of modules in a single enclosure will probably need a backplane, and the buses connecting these systems run at multi-Gbps data rates. The connectors, PCB, and interfaces in total contribute to losses throughout the bus, and a system-level simulation will need to account for all of these elements to ensure a working design. As part of a design and verification flow, simulations are Read Article
Backplane Routing Topology Backplane Routing Topology for Gigabit Copper and Fiber Networks Backplanes are the backbone of modular computing platforms, providing a fabric that interlinks pluggable daughtercards in a single system. The design of backplanes must support interfaces on the daughtercards, often at high data rates reaching multiple Gbps. Some standards also specify system design requirements that support RF or fiber integration into these systems. The RF and fiber portion is normally integrated through a specialized connector Read Article
Embedded Optical Interconnects in PCBs for Ultra High Speed Design Embedded Optical Interconnects in PCBs for Ultra High Speed Design Most PCB designers—except those that work on optical transceivers—are probably not aware of the coming revolution in silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs), electronic-photonic integrated circuits (EPICs), and greater proliferation of embedded optical systems outside of telecom. Applications outside of telecom (for example, military and aerospace systems) that require massive data transfer rates already make use of fiber optics for embedded Read Article
Optical PHY PCB Layout for Gigabit and Faster Ethernet Optical PHY PCB Layout for 100 Gigabit and Faster Ethernet Need to layout a board to connect to an optical PHY transceiver? Here are some high speed design aspects you’ll need to consider. Read Article