Transient Analysis of Printed Circuit Board Layouts using a Time Domain Solution of Kirchoff's Network Equations

Abstract

With the clock speeds and data rates greater than 1GHz being used on digital Printed Circuit Boards, it is now essential that the electromagnetic effects of crosstalk, reflection and pulse distortion be taken into account in the design. Unfortunately the size and complexity of a typical PCB is so great that a full-wave electromagnetic analysis is not practicable and a more pragmatic approach, such as the derivation of equivalent passive electrical circuits to represent the actual structure, must be considered. In this contribution a novel time domain technique is presented for analysing such equivalent circuits in a computationally efficient and accurate manner. Results are presented for example structures showing the computational speed and accuracy achieved.

Electromagnetic Compatibility Analysis of Multilayer PCBs Using a Hybrid Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) - Partial Element Equivalent Circuit (PEEC) Method

“…The PEEC simulation results in matrices containing the self and mutual inductances and capacitances of all the segments. This network can then be solved in the time domain by applying finite difference versions of Kirchoff's voltage and current laws [6]. Then by taking a Fourier transform of the current in each segment, the current distribution of figure 1(b) is obtained.…”

“…Then a finite difference method [6] is used to solve this network in the time domain and, using a DFT, frequency domain surface currents can be obtained. Finally these frequency domain surface currents are used to create a Huygen's surface excitation [7,8] within the traditional FDTD method from which radiation patterns can be obtained.…”