Signal Integrity

Browse our library of resources to learn more about pcb design and signal integrity.

All About PCB Loss Tangent: What it Means and When it Matters Do you know the PCB loss tangent for your laminate? Learn more about this important factor and how it affects your signals. Read Article

LVDS to LVPECL, CML, and Single-Ended Conversions A lot is made of high speed interfaces for PCBs. Here’s how you interface between LVDS to LVPECL, CML, and other logic families. Read Article

How Load Capacitance on a Transmission Line Affects Your Signals If you ever read about transmission lines and integrated circuit datasheets, there is this seemingly mysterious quantity called load capacitance. This value depends on the geometry of the component lead connected to the transmission line, as well as the substrate material and distance to the reference plane on the integrated circuit die. When working with transmission lines, the load capacitance of a component has some important effects on signal Read Article

Microwave Cavity Resonator Emissions in Your PCB Layout Even digital designers need to worry about cavity resonant emission in PCBs. Here’s how your circuit board can act like a microwave cavity resonator. Read Article

MIMO Antenna Design and PCB Layout Tips Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has become a more popular term now that 5G is becoming more publicized, but this term and the technology have been around for awhile. MIMO can be traced all the way back to research papers from the 1970s, and significant development was required before the technology could be commercialized. Recently, the drastic increase in wireless services direct to consumers and in offices has been enabled by MIMO. If you Read Article

Stripline vs. Microstrip Width for Desired Impedance: Are They the Same? Stripline vs. microstrip width values are quite different; they can’t simply be interchanged. Let’s break down why and what you can expect from your PCBs. Read Article

Differential Pairs Without Ground: Is it a Problem? Some designers tell you that differential pairs without ground are acceptable. So who’s correct? We’ll examine the pros and cons of a differential pair ground plane. Read Article

Signal Integrity for Mesh Ground Planes in Flex PCBs Even flex PCBs need a ground plane. Mesh ground planes can provide a 0 V reference in your PCB, but they have particular signal integrity requirements. Read Article

Modeling PCB Interconnects as Causal Systems Real PCB interconnects are causal systems and must be modeled with the correct time-dependent behavior. Read Article

The Benefits of High-Dk PCB Materials The terms “high-speed design” and “low-Dk PCB laminate” are often used in the same articles, and often in the same sentence. Low-Dk PCB materials have their place in high speed and high-frequency PCBs, but high-Dk PCB materials provide power integrity. Low-Dk PCBs are typically chosen as they tend to have lower loss tangent. Thus high-DK PCB materials tend to get overlooked for high speed and high-frequency PCBs. When we look at power integrity Read Article

Which Type of Capacitor Should You Use? Capacitors are used in far more applications than just bypassing noise, and there are many more types of capacitors than just ceramic and aluminium electrolytic. Read Article

Using Cellular for Internet of Things Devices and Design Cellular internet of things products are widely accessible and easy to design thanks to standard cellular modem modules and transceiver components. Read Article

Determining the Parasitic Inductance of a DC to DC Converter Unwanted parasitic inductance from capacitors and transformer leakage inductance in DC/DC converters cause power instability in digital systems. Here's how you can determine parasitic inductance in your power system. Read Article

I2C vs. SPI vs. UART: How to Layout These Common Buses If you’ve never worked with an MCU and programmable ICs, here are some guidelines on I2C vs. SPI vs. UART layout and routing. Read Article

What is Transfer Impedance in a PDN? We often talk about impedance in a PDN, but we always refer to self impedance. Here’s what you need to know about transfer impedance in your PCB. Read Article

Spotting DDR4 Impedance Violations in High Speed PCB Design DDR4 is one of many high speed interfaces that requires impedance control during routing. If you can spot impedance discontinuities, you can prevent excess insertion/return losses in leading to your DDR4 memory modules. Read Article

The Basics of Signal Integrity Analysis in Your PCB The basics of signal integrity analysis in your PCB can be anything but basic. Simulation tools are great for calculating the behavior of signals in different nets during schematic and layout design, but you’ll still need to take some steps to interpret the results. As advanced as some signal integrity and EM simulation tools can get, they simply can’t compare to the information you can glean from measurements. Whichever method you use to examine Read Article