Essential High-speed PCB Design for Signal Integrity

A new course from Analytical Edge

The first in a new Analytical Edge series: Understanding High-speed design

3 days

Most digital integrated circuits commercially available today have fast edge speeds, and their effects have to be considered in PCB design to maintain signal integrity, even at modest clock speeds. This new course from Analytical Edge, derived from its highly rated Introduction to High-speed PCB Design course, applies fundamental physical and engineering principles to enable the engineer or PCB designer to understand and apply the principles of high-speed design, to ensure signal integrity. The basic techniques developed can be applied immediately to improve PCB design, without the use of EDA signal integrity tools, but the course also provides a much-needed foundation for understanding how to benefit from the use of such tools.

By applying basic physical principles, this course seeks to develop an understanding of the key issues of high-speed design, all of which are needed to ensure a successful design for signal integrity. These range from controlling reflections and crosstalk to the design of the power distribution system and the PCB layer structure. Practical implementation is considered throughout.

The course is liberally illustrated with examples and "what if" scenarios showing the effects of varying different parameters, enabling participants to develop an understanding of their relative importance and magnitude. Helpful guidelines on assessing and implementing best practice are included.

Digital design engineers who either have no experience of the background and methods required for high-speed PCB design, or who have some experience but would benefit from a more complete and in-depth knowledge of signal integrity issues and possible design techniques.

PCB designers working on digital boards where high-speed design rules governing track impedance control, line terminations, routing to minimise noise coupling etc. are required.

Participants should be familiar with basic electrical concepts. No prior knowledge of EDA design tools is required or assumed.

Essential High-speed PCB Design for Signal Integrity covers the following areas in detail:

The impact, issues and challenges of high-speed design, in particular the importance of wave propagation and the frequency components of a digital signal, derived from its risetime.

The key roles of capacitance and loop inductance in determining frequency-dependent signal behaviour on a PCB.

Why we need to control the impedance of the power distribution system over a wide frequency range. Frequency analysis of decoupling networks. Capacitor types and limitations. Increasing the bandwidth. Plane capacitance, impedance and inductance. Alternative approaches to power distribution.

The need for track impedance control. Effects of PCB materials, stackup, geometry and fabrication. Track impedance, reflections, and properties of different types of line terminations.

When differential transmission may be beneficial. Differential and common mode currents. Routing differential tracks - coupled lines, odd and even modes. Terminating differential transmission lines.

Controlling crosstalk due to electric and magnetic field coupling between PCB tracks. Near end and far end crosstalk. Effect of coupled length. Crosstalk from multiple lines. Jitter due to crosstalk

The essential features of ICs for high-speed design. I/O characteristics, equivalent circuits and models. Behavioural device models - I-V curve extraction. Transient characteristics and transition timing. IBIS standards, file structure and evolution.

PCB routing topologies. Track routing effects - capacitive and inductive discontinuities. Effects of corners, connectors, and vias. Delay equalisation. Incident and reflected mode switching. Topology types - branching and nonbranching. Stubs, routing constraints, multiple capacitance loading, clock distribution.

Effects of PCB structure and fabrication. The effects of different layer stackups, fabrication variables, and material properties. PCB track impedance testing.