Breakdown characteristics of PCB paralleled traces injected by rectangular pulse

In the paper the breakdown characteristics of Printed Circuit Board (PCB) paralleled traces is investigated. Rectangular pulse with single pulse mode and repetition frequency pulse mode is injected directly to paralleled traces structure on PCB. To obtain desired pulse waveforms, a pulsed power generator is designed and set up which can output rectangular pulses with different pulse widths, pulse repetition frequency (PRF) and amplitudes. Experimental results show that the breakdown behavior between paralleled traces can be considered as “solid-gas” composite dielectric breakdown, and the breakdown characteristics are related to spacing of paralleled traces, pulse width, PRF and pulse duration, etc. Generally the breakdown voltage (U_bd) rises as trace spacing or pulse width increases and decreases as PRF or pulse duration increases. Overall, the research of susceptibility of PCB trace with conducted pulse injection could provide certain suggestions for PCB EMC design.