Blog Post

RSS

Following best design practices for controlling EMI will increase your chance of success in your next design. But, sometimes knowing what not to do is just as important.

Gustavo Blando, a Samtec signal integrity architect, recently presented “DC Block Capacitor Location (Does It Matter)?” at a Samtec geEEk and spEEk webinar. Here he presents a summary of some of his key points.

Mechanical needs and power limits are at odds with what is optimal for signal integrity. Having a metric that guides us to the sufficient SI choice rather than going for the optimal SI choice ultimately saves cost and decreases time to market. Read on for the details on Brandon Gore’s technique.

SIJ technical editor Eric Bogatin notes that there are some problems that occur over and over again across product families and applications. They have a handful of essential principles at their underlying root cause. In this blog, he explains that if we really understand these underlying principles, the root cause of the problems will be more apparent and their solutions closer to implement.

Recently, Cadence released its Clarity 3D Transient Solver for EMI simulation.  I caught up with Brad Griffin, product management group director for multi-physics system analysis in the Custom IC & PCB Group at Cadence to follow up for some more details.

The extension of operating frequencies in the mmWave region and beyond is the story of wireless development for the next thirty years. Understanding the resulting challenges and improving the state-of-the-art is a key driver for the EMC and wireless Industries. This article takes a look at some of the fundamentals of mmWave, including signal propagation, available spectrum, and challenges and issues facing EMC.

With more than three times more webinars offered in our Covid-19 era, we have more opportunities to accelerate up the learning curve or waste a lot of time. I sacrificed hours of my time watching dozens of webinars to identify these three princes. Check them out. They are well worth your time.

Probing signals with a bandwidth below 100 MHz and voltage sensitivity above 100 mV is a no-brainer. Regardless of the type of signal or the source impedance, the venerable 10x passive probe is the answer. However, at bandwidths >100 MHz and with voltage sensitivity <100 mV, the 10x passive probe may not be the best option. In this article, SIJ technical editor Eric Bogatin introduces an easy-to-implement, low-cost alternative to the 10x passive probe specifically for power-rail measurements.

Component manufacturers continue to develop increasingly miniaturized bulkhead filter capacitors that also offer increased current capacity, voltage, and operating temperature ranges. This post looks at the details of this miniaturization in order to help aerospace systems designers satisfy stringent size and weight constraints and further improve system performance.

Verifying the modulation profile of SSC has historically been challenging because it involves a frequency shift as a function of time. Mike Hertz explains that by tracking the frequency measurement parameter, an oscilloscope can display the SSC modulation profile as a function of frequency versus time. Read on to see how it’s done.