About the Training Course

Many signal integrity and EMC problems can not be effectively modeled using 'standard' tools. High frequency signals often require a full-wave modeling approach to capture all the various electromagnetic effects. This training course will examine the various full-wave simulation techniques, their strengths and their weaknesses, and when they should be used for various SI and EMC problems. This seminar will include examples of applying full-wave techniques to real-world problems, such as, decoupling power/ground planes, emissions from PC boards, connector effects (cross-talk, resonance, etc), effects of vias on high speed signals, and more. How to validate the fullwave simulation results will also be discussed in detail.
This is a new advanced course following on from Dr Bruce Archambeault's Printed Circuit Board Design for Real-World EMI Control training course.

Who is this training course for?

• Digital Engineers
• EMC specialists
• EMC Engineers
• Digital logic designers
• System architects
• Design Managers
• Printed wiring layout professionals
• Applications engineers
• Anyone who works with digital logic at high speeds (20 MHz to 20 GHz and beyond).

Training Course Content

Introduction to Full Wave Simulation Tools

Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD)
- One of the easiest techniques to understand and to start using effectively
Method of Moments (MoM)
- Very Popular technique, especially for emissions simulation
Partial Element Equivalent Circuit (PEEC) Technique
- New technique, especially well suited to printed circuit board simulations
Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) Method
- Recent technique, used for shielding studies
Finite Element Method (FEM)
- Well established technique, especially for closed volumes

Strengths and Weaknesses of EACH Technique
All techniques have models that they are well suited to simulate, and all techniques have models that they may be able to simulate, but only after extra effort and many simplifying assumptions. Knowing which technique is best suited for which types of problems can make the model creation job much easier.

Validation Methods
It is extremely important that users do not simply 'believe' the results of their simulations without some level of results validation. We will discuss the various ways to validate the different modeling techniques, including measurements, intermediate results, closed form solutions, comparisons between modeling techniques, etc.

Quasi-static Simulation
Sometimes a fullwave simulation is not required. Quasi-static simulations can be used to find fast results under certain conditions.

Application to Real-World problems
Understanding how to break a real-world problem into something that can be simulated effectively is an important first step in the modeling process.

Specific Examples for Modeling/simulations

• Shielding Effectiveness
• Modeling printed circuit board Via transitions and via stubs
• Modeling printed circuit board discontinuities
• High speed traces crossing split reference planes
• Traces with 90 degree bends
• Power/Ground-Reference Plane decoupling
• Crosstalk in High speed connectors

About the Lecturer

Dr. Bruce Archambeault, Ph D., MSEE., MIEEE,
Archambeault EMI Enterprises, USA

Dr. Bruce Archambeault received his B.S.E.E degree in 1977 and his M.S.E.E degree in 1981. He received his Ph. D. in 1997. His doctoral research was in the area of computational electromagnetics applied to real-world EMC problems. In 1981 he joined DEC and he had assignments ranging from EMC/TEMPEST product design and testing to developing computational electromagnetic EMC-related software tools. In 1994 he joined SETH Corporation where he continued to develop computational electromagnetic EMC-related software tools and used them as a consulting engineer. He recently joined IBM in Raleigh, N.C. where he is a Senior member of Technical Staff, and a lead EMC engineer, responsible for EMC tool development and use. During his career in the U.S. Air Force he was responsible for in-house communications security and TEMPEST/EMC related research and development projects
Dr. Archambeault has authored or co-authored a number of papers in computational electromagnetics. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors on the IEEE EMC Society and a member of the Board of Directors of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES). He is the author of the book titled "PCB Design for Real-World EMI Control" and the lead author of the book titled "EMI/EMC Computational Modeling Handbook". Dr. Archambeault is currently a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE EMC Society.