[SI-LIST] Re: trace width working as a plane

Hello Daniel,
as a rough rule of thumb for 50 Ohm microstrip lines, once the wide trace 
(return trace / plane) extends about 2 line widths beyond the signal 
trace, the influence of further widening is negligible with respect to 
characteristic impedance. That's because for typical PCB dimensions at 
already at very low frequencies (low MHz) most of the return current is 
already flowing in a narrow band directly below the signal trace. For 
frequencies below that the trace impedance is usually unimportant because 
the trace is many orders of magnitude shorter than the signal wavelength 
(1 MHz corresponds to a wavelength of approx. 200m on a stripline of FR-4 
dielectric).

For quantitative results it is easy to simulate the effect of the line 
width with a 2D field solver. I'd recommend TNT/MMTL (google for "TNT 
field solver"), freely available from sourceforge. Model the wide trace 
and the short trace as rectangular conductors, and make sure they are far 
enough away from the (infinitely wide) ground plane. Define the wide trace 
as gounded (start its name with "gr", not just "g" as the manual says). 
TNT will directly report the impedance of the narrow trace.

I made a quick run; surface microstrip line, narrow trace width 20 mils, 
spacing to wide trace 10 mils, eps_r = 4:, trace thickness 1 mil for both 
traces

wide trace 200 mils --> Zo = 46.3 Ohms
wide trace 100 mils --> Zo = 46.5 Ohms
wide trace 60 mils --> Zo = 46.9 Ohms
wide trace 40 mils --> Zo = 47.7 Ohms
wide trace 20 mils --> Zo = 54.4 Ohms


Wolfgang






Daniel Bauer <daniel.bauer16@xxxxxx> 
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02/25/2009 12:27 PM

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[SI-LIST] trace width working as a plane






Hello, 

could you tell me if there`s an rule of thumb at which width of the trace, 
the trace is working as a plane depending on the signal frequency? 

For example: the width of the trace for a signal-frequency 500kHz must be 
0.15mm to get a 100 ohm impedance. If the width of the trace gets bigger, 
the impedance gets smaller -> you will get more radiation (no exact 
impedance matching). 

But what will happen when the width of the trace gets more and more 
bigger....?  At which point will the "trace width" work as plane and how 
do I have to calculate the correct impedance of this plane (microstrip 
calculator do not work with such width of trace)? Are there any kind of 
formulas?

best regards
Daniel
 
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