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In this inaugural post in his new Practical EMC blog on Signal Integrity Journal, Kenneth Wyatt lays out the major tools to troubleshoot and test for EMC compliance.

Recent studies indicate that the industry is nearing the precipice where plated through hole via technology has reached a limit in supporting serial links with 28 GHz Nyquist frequency requirements. At DesignCon2021, a team from the Mayo Clinic presented this paper about their work to extend the “life” of conventional PCB technology.

Check out this latest installment in the Extreme Measurements Blog that covers the measurement challenges for GaN switches.

With the recent introduction of the Averatek Semi-Additive Process (A-SAP) process, linewidths under 1 mil are possible using the same fabrication processing line as for traditional 4 mil wide lines. This opens up the possibility of using narrower traces in the BGA escape region than in long-path routing regions. However, using this routing architecture means the narrower traces in the BGA escape field are at a higher impedance than the wider, 50 ohm traces in the routing region. So, how long can these traces be before the impedance mismatch is a problem? The authors of this piece propose an analysis methodology to find out.

If you have designed a controlled impedance transmission line based on a PCB stack-up, how do you know if the PCB fabrication house or another vendor built your stack-up to meet your controlled impedance specification?

It may have gone somewhat unnoticed but for the first time ever, Ansys released software into the open source late last year. The software is PyAnsys, a family of Python packages providing a new, unified programmable interface to the company’s proprietary simulation stack. Learn more about this development.

I do not know if there was a legitimate reason for this request, but I was once asked to determine the turns ratio of a power transformer inside a sealed, DC-DC converter module.  In any case, there is not much usable information since the module is sealed, but we can apply a simple trick. Check out this latest installment in Extreme Measurements.

As a closing gesture to the SI, PI, and EMC/EMI community, we want to leave all of you with a year-end holiday gift for your continued support.

Impedance is the most fundamental and important electrical property of any component. With a very simple technique, anyone can simulate the impedance of any circuit in seconds using any version of SPICE, for free. Read on to learn more.

As rated by reader views, here are the Top 5, Most Read Articles on SIJ of all time. Thank you for your continued readership, as we look forward to bringing you many more great technical features in 2022 and beyond!