Items Tagged with 'impedance'

ARTICLES

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Microstrip FEXT Reduction by Capacitive Compensation

Reduction of microstrip FEXT plays an important role in microwave engineering, as microstrip coupled line backward couplers suffer from poor directivity when not compensated. In this article, Henning Mextorf presents a general approach to improve directivity which does not require a modification of the dimensions of the coupled line structure and provides closed form solutions for optimum capacitor values.


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Avoiding GIGO with Field Solvers

In this article, Bert Simonovich explores how to avoid “garbage in, garbage out” with field solvers by building an understanding of the nuances of PCB fabrication processes, the interpretation manufacturers’ data sheets, and the tool’s user interface.


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Eight Tips on Giving a Presentation

Now that I am teaching full time and have a number of undergraduate and graduate students doing weekly project reviews, I listen to more presentations than I give. I find myself giving the same feedback over and over again. So, I thought I would share my eight most common comments and tips to engineers giving presentations.


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Stackup Beware: Case Study of the Effects on Transmission Line Losses Due to Mixed Reference Plane Roughness

Designing the right PCB stackup can make or break product performance. If the product has circuitry that is impedance and transmission loss sensitive, then paying attention to conductor surface roughness is paramount. Sometimes, however, the roughness of adjacent reference plane(s) is overlooked. If the adjacent high-speed signal layer uses smoother copper than one or both reference planes, a higher insertion loss than expected for that layer will occur and possibly cause a product to fail compliance. So, how is this determined before finalizing the stackup? Read on to find out.


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