All, In trying to remove two layers from a 16 layer PCB I came up with a question I don't know how to answer short of building a board, which there is not time for. I have closed the loop on simulation/modeling vs measurement for a PDS with embedded capacitor using a 4 mil dielectric and capacitor array. I want to say thank you to Sun and Xilinx for the excellent work and papers they have published in the public domain on the subject. Now, I am having trouble working out what would happen if I insert a signal layer in between the planes. I need three signal layers to be referenced to a pwr/gnd pair, and that currently takes six layers(G-S-S-P-G-S). If I can insert a signal routing layer between pwr and gnd, it drops to five layers(S-P-S-G-S). This happens on two different pwr rails. My first reaction is the only difference would be the ~doubling of the distance between the planes. I can decrease this effect by using 3 mil cores. After thinking a while longer, it seems like there would be other differences from the copper in between the planes. It seems like I should be able to minimize the effect by using special spacing rules in the signal layer between the planes to maximize the ratio of dieletric area to copper. I think this would make the discontinuities in the dielctric(the copper traces) insignificant. I have not found a discussion of this specific PDS topic in the archives, and I apologize in advance if I am repeating something that has already been discussed. Any input or thoughts are appreciated, thank you for your time. Tegan Campbell ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List FAQ wiki page is located at: http://si-list.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Si-List_FAQ List technical documents are available at: http://www.si-list.org List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu