Signal Integrity

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Here’s the dilemma every hardware engineer faces at one time or another. Your new circuit board just came back from the assembly shop, you turn it on, and it doesn’t work. You have to debug it to find the root cause of the bug(s). How are you going to do this? Turns out, there’s an app for that. Eric Bogatin explains.

 “A few minutes upfront checking will save you hours of frustration later,” Eric Bogatin explains seven features of s-parameters

In an analysis of supply chain data and IPC survey results, Zachariah Peterson gives a measured overview of where we are at, and what might happen next.In an analysis of supply chain data and IPC survey results, Zachariah Peterson gives a measured overview of where we are at, and what might happen next.

Bert Simonovich explains why you should take your shot at becoming an industry influencer, offering tips to get started and to keep moving.

It turns out that dielectrics, in fact, cool traces more efficiently than does convection + radiation, and therefore internal traces are relatively cooler. In this article, Brooks & Adam examine the question: Is there a predictable relationship between the external temperature of a trace and the internal temperature of the same trace carrying the same current?

Copper loss is one ingredient in interconnect loss. Surface texture or roughness has long been recognized as adding an excess loss over smooth copper. With the SI-VSP (very smooth profile) copper foils recently introduced by Mitsui Mining&Smelting Co. Ltd. (Mitsui Kinzoku), we may have reached the limits.

Eagerly anticipated, the next generation of DRAM technologies (DDR5/LPDDR5) are presently being validated in the lab by leading silicon vendors worldwide. This latest generation has a big surprise in store for hardware engineers and SI specialists that need to simulate such systems. DDR5 will introduce decision feedback equalization (DFE) for the DRAM receiver for the very first time.

Here’s a roundup of some of the things taking place at DesignCon 2020.

Return current for a signal always finds a way to flow as close to the signal as possible, thus minimizing the magnetic energy stored in the loop defined by the signal and its return path. So, the return current path is the combination of conduction paths that together minimize the stored magnetic energy. Some elements of the return current path may be part of the design and other elements may be unintentional.

Here’s what you need to do to enter to win copies of 9 books to round out your SI/PI library—one is out of print and one is hot off the press.