Effectiveness of PCB Simulation in Teaching High-Speed Digital Design

Signal integrity for high-speed digital design at the printed-circuit board (PCB) level is an issue of increasing importance in electronic design that requires coverage in more undergraduate classes. This paper describes how simulation tools offer an economical alternative to hardware-based experiments in undergraduate courses in high speed design. A simulation tool, Hyperlynx, has been used in our high-speed digital design class to help students understand fundamental concepts and ideas in signal integrity as well as to experiment with different techniques for maintaining signal integrity in a PCB design. We present examples in which traditional approaches employing only closed-form expressions can be effectively supplemented with simulation to help students gain a deeper understanding of basic concepts such as time-of-flight, parasitic parameters, nonlinear driver and receiver models, characteristic impedance, per-unit- length parameters, termination techniques, and crosstalk.