-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueLevel Up Your Design Skills
This month, our contributors discuss the PCB design classes available at IPC APEX EXPO 2024. As they explain, these courses cover everything from the basics of design through avoiding over-constraining high-speed boards, and so much more!
Opportunities and Challenges
In this issue, our expert contributors discuss the many opportunities and challenges in the PCB design community, and what can be done to grow the numbers of PCB designers—and design instructors.
Embedded Design Techniques
Our expert contributors provide the knowledge this month that designers need to be aware of to make intelligent, educated decisions about embedded design. Many design and manufacturing hurdles can trip up designers who are new to this technology.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
Shrinking Silicon, EMI, and SI
March 3, 2023 | Andy Shaughnessy, Design007 MagazineEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
As IC features continue to shrink, the PCB designer’s job gets more interesting—signal speeds and rise times are increasing, they’re encountering EMI and signal integrity issues once only seen in the RF world.
Dr. Todd Hubing is a longtime EMC instructor, president of LearnEMC, and a professor emeritus of the Electrical and Computer Engineering program at Clemson University. I asked Todd to discuss the challenges that shrinking silicon can present for traditional PCB designers, as well as the opportunities and benefits of smaller chip features.
Andy Shaughnessy: Shrinking silicon is causing an increase in EMI and SI issues for PCB designers and EEs. What sort of problems does shrinking silicon cause?
Todd Hubing: When the features of an IC shrink, transition times tend to be faster, and the high-frequency content of digital signals tends to increase. When newer, faster ICs are used in products that were designed with the older versions of those ICs, those products can suddenly start failing to meet EMC or SI requirements even though there was no nominal change in the design. ICs with smaller features can also be more susceptible to damage by voltage transients, though that largely depends on the mitigation features built into the design.
Shaughnessy: What is the relationship between smaller silicon and EM fields, and what can these designers do to proactively fight EMI and SI?
Hubing: Field coupling directly from an IC is not directly affected by smaller silicon. Field coupling depends more on the currents pulled through the inductance of the lead-frame. Shrinking the features on the silicon can cause those currents to be higher or lower at any given frequency depending on the application.
To protect against future silicon feature-size changes, PCB designers should always proactively control the transition times of any signal that could ultimately be the source of crosstalk or radiated emissions. They shouldn’t rely on “slow” devices to meet EMI and SI requirements.
Shaughnessy: If we add increased rise time and faster signals into this mix, how does material and material selection figure into the equation? Do you think OEMs should select their material, or allow the fab to do so?
Hubing: I believe laminate selection is strictly an SI issue, and then only for the fastest digital signals. Choosing whether to let the fabricator select the laminate depends on the many factors, but, in my opinion, that decision is unlikely to be impacted by silicon shrinkage.
To read this entire interview, which appeared in the February 2023 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.
Suggested Items
DuPont Unveils Pyralux ML Laminate Series, Offering High Thermal Management for Extreme Environments
04/09/2024 | DuPontDuPont introduced the DuPont™ Pyralux® ML Series of double-sided metal-clad laminates, a unique addition to its extensive family of Pyralux® laminates for flexible and rigid-flex printed circuit boards (PCBs).
Arlon EMD and EMC Announce Expansion in California
03/25/2024 | Arlon EMDArlon EMD, a division of Elite Materials Company (EMC), announces a factory expansion at the Rancho Cucamonga, CA location. Arlon is a global leader in high performance thermoset substrates for mission critical printed circuit boards manufactured for high endurance and long-life programs. Arlon has a 45-year history of manufacturing specialty materials for the Aerospace, Industrial and Military (AIM) markets.
EMC, Arlon Industry Leading PWB Laminates at DesignCon 2024
01/29/2024 | EMCAt the DesignCon 2024 Expo, drop by EMC/ Arlon booth #1260 and learn from the experts with the results from a wide range of performance testing that some of our key OEM customers in almost all market segments of technology, have completed.
Designers Notebook: What Designers Need to Know About Manufacturing, Part 1
01/25/2024 | Vern Solberg -- Column: Designer's NotebookThe designer needs to have a working understanding of two key manufacturing operations: basic circuit board fabrication procedures and assembly process practices. For printed circuit board manufacturing, the number of steps required to produce the printed circuit board correlates to the circuit board's complexity. Greater process complexity in fabricating the circuit board equates to increased costs. To develop any portion of the electronic product, the designer must apply the design for manufacturing (DFM) principles established in the industry. In fact, DFM should always be the goal of the design engineer. It encompasses a wide range of disciplines that must be considered during the planning phase of any product.
Rogers Corporation Exhibiting at DesignCon 2024
01/24/2024 | Rogers CorporationRogers Corporation will exhibit at DesignCon in Santa Clara, CA (booth #609) highlighting some of its high performance circuit materials.