Pat, No, I did mean 1 victim and 4 aggressors. With this configuration with most simulators you can perform two types of simulations, crosstalk and ISI. A crosstalk simualtion is performed with all 4 aggressors driven with a pattern and the victim in a quiescent logic state, either active high, active low, or both. An ISI simulation is performed with the 4 aggressors and the victim driven with patterns. Choosing different patterns to stimulate all possible crosstalk and signalling modes is always an interesting exercise. best regards, scott -- Scott McMorrow Teraspeed Consulting Group LLC 2926 SE Yamhill St. Portland, OR 97214 (503) 239-5536 http://www.teraspeed.com Pat Diao wrote: >Scott, > >Did you mean 1 aggressor and 4 victims below? It won't change the coupling >coefficient either way, but physically in most simulators the aggressor is >the one that carries the active voltage. > >Just want to clarify... > >Pat > > > >Pat Diao >ASAT Inc. >Fremont, CA >phone: (510) 249-1227 > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Scott McMorrow [mailto:scott@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] >Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 12:48 PM >To: mherndon@xxxxxxxxx >Cc: si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx >Subject: [SI-LIST] Re: How accurate is HSPICE's field solver? > > >Matt, > >For single ended simulations I most always use 5 coupled lines, 1 victim >and 4 aggressors. And for differential simulations I use 6 or 10 >coupled lines (3 or 5 differential pairs) There are several reasons why >I do this: > >1) By extending the simulation trace geometry out to 2 aggressors on >either side, I guarantee that the adjacent aggressors are operating in >their normal electromagnetic field configuration, with their impedance >altered correctly by the adjacent aggressors traces. This reduces some >errors in the overall crosstalk and eye pattern simulations. Although >neighbors that are 2 conductors away from the victim have very little >direct influence upon the victim, they do have an indirect influence due >to their coupling to the nearest crosstalk neighbor, having a tendency >to alter the dynamic impedance of the nearest neighbors, and therefore >the amount of energy available for crosstalk on the victim. > >2) Signals always travel through packages and often travel through >connectors. In both cases, coupling is almost always much stronger than >it is on the PCB. (Unless the PCB stackup is poorly designed.) It is >often necessary to simulate many neighbors in packages and connectors. > In order to keep the simulations symmetric and not induce artifacts due >to different driven phases, I find it useful to extract as many >conductors in the PCB as will be simulated through the package and >connectors. For packages that are designed with poor power/ground >structures, I find that there are additional modes of propagation >between the signal conductors and package power conductors that cannot >be accounted for if all of the signal conductors are not driven. This >will sometimes require a large number of conductors to be extracted from >the PCB, in order to include all of the system effects. Oftentimes I >find that for non perfectly terminated busses the crosstalk will >saturate in the package before ever reaching the PCB. > >3) At high frequencies fine pitch BGA via breakouts can introduce a >large amount of crosstalk, similar to that caused by connectors. Since >these patterns are square arrays, I will use a 3x3 array of vias, >extract them using a full wave field solver, convert the s-parameters >into a spice circuit with BroadBand Spice, and then assign the signals >and grounds based upon the ball-out pattern of the BGA. This will often >cause the simulation to need quite a few parallel lines to be extracted >from the PCB. > >I hope this answers your question, Matt. > >Best regards, > >scott > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 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