Our friends at DesignCon and Design News are launching the DesignCon Back-to-School webinar series. Experts from DesignCon’s conference will share their insights from the electronics chip, board, and system industries, walking through use cases, defining various tools, and providing an understanding of why some designs look good on paper but fail once implemented.
Samtec is presenting Current Distribution, Resistance & Inductance in Power Connectors. This paper won the DesignCon 2020 Best Paper Award.
DesignCon Best Paper Awards are chosen based on feedback from the DesignCon Technical Program Committee and event attendees. Winners are chosen based on technical merit and presentation ability.
This paper analyzes the frequency dependent resistance and inductance of power connector pin patterns. The details of a single power pin are analyzed, and the final results come from parametric studies of pin arrays that are part of specific printed circuit board layouts. The results of this study have two significant outcomes to the designer utilizing a power connector.
First, a layout that minimizes individual power pin current will minimize system power consumption. Second, an accurate representation of frequency dependent resistance and inductance can be used to strategically optimize signal-to-power pin isolation to reduce noise.
Key takeaways include:
- Simulation tools are capable of predicting low to high frequency resistance and inductance profiles.
- Isolated connector measurements correlate well with simulation.
- In measurements, two-port Shunt-through connection scheme is mandatory, whereas in simulations it is necessary only if there is large mode conversion.
- Single-port simulations, on the other hand, were very sensitive to small changes in the port that had to be de-embedded.
- Power induced crosstalk is both board and pinout dependent.
- Inter-leaved power/ground pin assignments are not optimal for signal to power crosstalk.
- In this test board setup, power-ground-signal pinout gives the minimal induced crosstalk.
- Crosstalk in the connector is accentuated by the board crosstalk.
- Minimizing reflection discontinuities is essential for resonance-free crosstalk.
Current Distribution, Resistance & Inductance in Power Connectors is presented free of charge on Thursday, October 1, 2020, by Adam Gregory and Clement Luk, who are both Signal Integrity Engineers at Samtec. Here’s a link to register for the presentation. Attendees will also hear updates on DesignCon 2021 and receive a discount code for the upcoming in-person conference.
Leave a Reply