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PCB Transmission Lines
Layer Stackup Design

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PCB Transmission Lines

Living on the Edge (Rate) Rise and fall frequency Living on the Edge (Rate) — It’s All About Time and Distance The focus of this article is the clarify the origins of the phrase edge rate, what it really means relative to the design process and the best means for addressing it. Read Article
Reflecting on Your Design, Part 2, What Do Reflections Do to a Signal? Reflecting on Your Design, Part 2, What Do Reflections Do to a Signal? In part 1 of this article, I described what transmission line reflections are, how they are created and what the resulting waveforms look like. This part of the article will discuss what reflections do to a signal. Figure 1 is a typical 5V CMOS driver driving a 50-ohm transmission line that is 12 inches or approximately 2 nanoseconds long. There is a CMOS receiver at the end of the line that is a tiny parasitic capacitor. For these purposes, it Read Article
Transmission Line Properties That Affect Impedance—Hidden Features Transmission Line Properties That Affect Impedance—Hidden Features Here and in several other articles published on the Altium Resource section of the company’s website, the topic of transmission line impedance has been addressed from a number of different perspectives. I have addressed transmission line impedance previously in my article, The Evolution Of Simulation Technology and Impedance and, it might seem that we may have exhausted the field of potential information that can be provided on impedance, however Read Article
The Right Termination, Of The Right Size, At The Right Place The Right Termination, Of The Right Size, At The Right Place In recent articles, I have addressed reflections, what they do to signals on transmission lines and how to control them through the use of terminations, serial and parallel. One area of confusion that continues to come up in our on-site classes regards the actual placement of terminators. This article will address this topic and hopefully provide some useful guidelines. Note: I am only addressing series and parallel terminations. Most of the Read Article
31:31 Transmission Line Impedance Calculation With Altium Designer Today’s PCBs contain many transmission lines. Combine this with increased clock frequencies and data rates and the result is a critical challenge to high-speed design. Neglecting these dynamics can undermine product development by compromising performance, power consumption, EMC/EMI compliance, and more - leading to delayed design cycles and opening gaps that can be exploited by your competition. Hone your high-speed design skills by joining us as we discuss the typical transmission lines encountered in today’s designs, the PCB variables that affect impedance, as well as how to create, calculate, and design transmission lines in Altium Designer. Learn how to maximize the built in SIMBEOR® engine by Simberian to craft impedance profiles and manage transmission lines in your designs. This Live Webinar recording covers the following: Current trends in electronics development PCB transmission line model and impedance calculations Transmission line with specified impedance in Altium Designer Don’t pass up on this opportunity to experience the industry’s best in class design experience! Watch Video
1:3:28 Experience The New World-Class Interactive Router in Altium Designer 20 Altium Designer 20 ushers in a whole new era of possibilities and amongst them is a truly game-changing Interactive Routing Watch Video
Impedance Controlled Routing for Boards Made in Altium Designer Impedance Controlled Routing for Boards Made in Altium Designer The 3D field solver in Altium Designer makes impedance controlled routing easy and lets you create design rules for your system. Read Article
Differential pairs Confused About Differential Signaling or Clocks? Check out this quick snippet of the Altium Podcast with guru of high speed design Lee Ritchey The primary reason that differential signaling is dominating the digital world is that far higher data bandwidths can be achieved over a pair of wires than with parallel, single-ended signaling protocols. The Internet as we know it would not be possible without differential signaling. This information is intended to clear up any confusion about Read Article