Printed circuit boards post-layout analysis: from signal integrity to radiated emissions

A test PCB, called SQ-test, reproducing actual high speed digital signal distributions, was designed and realized to investigate signal integrity problems such as crosstalk in multi conductor transmission lines (TLs) with nonlinear loads. The same PCB was also used to study radiated emissions from traces modeled as TLs and integrated circuits (ICs) modeled as small loops. It is shown that distributed TL models are appropriate for interconnections with linear loads but not sufficient to simulate structures with many loads and several gates switching simultaneousiy in the same chip of the IC