Hi Ken,
Great demonstration!
/Mikhail
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Wyatt
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2017 3:05 PM
To: istvan.novak@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Lee Ritchey ; si-list
Subject: [SI-LIST] Re: Ground Article
Hi Istvan,
I would have to agree there can be many trade-offs in board designs -
especially in very dense designs. You mentioned some cases where splits were
OK and I’d be interested in any additional specific conditions where
splitting the return (or reference) plane is OK from a SI or EMI point of
view, or can even make it better, as you point out.
In general, my experience has been in cases where high speed (>100 kHz, say)
clocks or other digital signals cross a gap in the return plane, common mode
harmonic currents are produced, which can create not only crosstalk to
victim traces, but worse, these currents can flow out the outside of I/O
cable shields, creating the potential for radiated emissions. I understand
there are situations where this can’t be helped and I do believe there are
cases where this doesn’t matter much.
I created a short video demonstration of this effect.
https://youtu.be/L44lTnQgv-o
Cheers, Ken
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On Jan 16, 2017, at 9:05 PM, Istvan Novak <istvan.novak@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Lee,
Nice article and I agree with most of what you say, though I still would
not use extreme phrases, like on page 6 you say "Splitting a ground
plane destroys its integrity as an ultralow impedance connection between
all of the components in a circuit and should never be done." I agree
that the reference (ground) plane is very important and we should make
sure it can serve its purpose properly. However, in complex and high
density designs there are several conflicting requirements and sometimes
making careful splits on the ground planes are not only OK, it will make
the product outright better. There are occasions, for instance, when we
need to equalize and optimize the DC drop on planes and in addition to
optimizing the placement of components, we can also help by splitting
the planes, power and/or reference planes. If signal traces are
naturally routed alongside the split without the need to cross it, the
signaling will be OK. There are real, working products with split
ground planes.
Regards,
Istvan Novak
Oracle
On 1/16/2017 6:53 PM, Lee Ritchey wrote:
A few weeks ago we had a prolonged exchange on what ground is. With
Martin
Rowe, we did an article that appeared on the UBM site with this URL.
http://ubm.io/2ikEDat
I wrote another article that includes this as well as an expanded section
on
EMI and ground and Faraday Cages and how they contain EMI. That article
is
now posted on the Speeding Edge web site, www.speedingedge.com
<http://www.speedingedge.com> for any who want to go beyond what the
first
article covered.
Hope both of these help clear up some of the confusion around this topic.
See you all at DesignCon in Santa Clara at the end of the month.
By the way, I am planting flowers in my ground this month!
Lee Ritchey
Speeding Edge
P.O. Box 2194
Glen Ellen, CA
95442
707-568-3983
I just used the energy it takes
To get mad and wrote some blues.
Count Basie
Or:
Worry is like a rocking chair,
It keeps you busy but.
It doesn't get you anywhere.
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