[SI-LIST] Re: Why is capacitor with high ESR

  • From: Chris Cheng <Chris.Cheng@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "'steve weir'" <weirsp@xxxxxxxxxx>, "'''sguzek@xxxxxxxxx ' ' '" <sguzek@xxxxxxxxx>, "'''Si-List ' ' '" <si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 13:59:45 -0800

I am sure some workstation/server company will ship their AMD volume
products with lot's o DET cap to compete with the Taiwan/China no name brand
PCB that will actually take away passives until it fails FCC and then put
the last one they remove back to squeeze thru FCC. Then again, what do I
know. I just design servers.

And there will always be fools like me who will stick with structures like
7) and thinking their feraday cage is good enough to contain the noise. 

Finally, I also believe minimizing the noise energy is the first thing you
should do. Following my simple rules of managing the I/O return paths and
stage your core power distribution through die/package/pcb and you will need
less of those cages or dissipation. 

It's like buying your teenage kid a drum set and then trying to figure out
how to sound proof your room and house. Don't get the drum set in the first
place.

-----Original Message-----
From: steve weir [mailto:weirsp@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 12:41 PM
To: Chris Cheng; Chris Cheng; Chris Cheng; Chris Cheng;
'''sguzek@xxxxxxxxx ' ' '; '''Si-List ' ' '
Subject: RE: [SI-LIST] Re: Why is capacitor with high ESR


Chris, I see two separate threads:

1. Does DET work?
2. Is DET technically and economically practical.

I have a hard time seeing DET becoming practical due to human 
nature.  Istvan disagrees with me, but the problem that I see is that DET 
caps are very specialized so it will be really hard to convince a mfg to 
make them unless there is both strong customer demand, and customer demand 
at a premium over ordinary caps.  At the same time, OEMs will be very 
hesitant to do something new especially if it involves risk in the supply 
chain and "expensive" commodity items.  I would like Istvan's vision to 
work-out, but I don't see it happening.  That might change if some really 
big OEMs decide that they want to demand high ESR caps from their suppliers.

As to DET working?  Istvan is probably the most prominent individual 
carrying the banner for DET with a number of papers and a whole lot of 
invested effort, but he is not alone.  Patents by Hitachi back in the mid 
1990s address damping planes for among other reasons EMI reduction.

Now, let's look at the thought problem that you propose:  TIG welding shut 
one side of a cavity, versus placing a lossy load across the 
aperture.  Although it may not be intuitively obvious, in the perfect case 
for each, no energy escapes.  The difference between the two is that with 
the DET case, the energy has been dissipated.  In the TIG welded case, the 
energy has simply been reflected and is still available to escape somewhere 
else, and that from an EMI perspective is the problem that DET sets out to 
address.

Personally, I like TIG welds.  If I could find a TIG weld that supports DC 
I would have a really good decoupling capacitor.

Regards,


Steve.
At 12:10 PM 12/6/2004 -0800, Chris Cheng wrote:
>I have a hard time getting through the thought experiment.
>I you have a computer chassis with solid ground and you cut it in half and
>isolate one half and tie it to power. You then connect the to halfs by your
>DET caps, do you think the EMI performance will be better than spot
>soldering the two halfs together and maintaining both at ground ? Remember,
>spot soldering is almost free and I can always put more solder joints than
>DET caps.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: steve weir [mailto:weirsp@xxxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 11:18 AM
>To: Chris Cheng; Chris Cheng; Chris Cheng; '''sguzek@xxxxxxxxx ' ' ';
>'''Si-List ' ' '
>Subject: RE: [SI-LIST] Re: Why is capacitor with high ESR
>
>
>Chrsi no problem, we'll take care of that noise with single points and
>splits!  Seriously, if you would like to do a test vehicle out of academic
>interest, I think you will find that DET does a better job suppressing EMI
>than a highly reflective fence.
>
>Regards,
>
>
>Steve
>At 10:48 AM 12/6/2004 -0800, Chris Cheng wrote:
> >The reality will be the top/bottom layers will have microstrip signals
>added
> >(8 layers) which will force me to use ground plane reference and
>arrangement
> >like 6) with outer signal layers added will unlikely to happen in my
>design.
> >If you have microstrip signals and construct it with power as reference
> >plane at the bottom as in 6). You are in for more trouble than edge
> >radiation.
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: steve weir
> >To: Chris Cheng; Chris Cheng; ''sguzek@xxxxxxxxx ' '; ''Si-List ' '
> >Sent: 12/6/2004 10:38 AM
> >Subject: RE: [SI-LIST] Re: Why is capacitor with high ESR
> >
> >Chris, I agree that 7 will work better than 5, although it might be a
> >little bit less representative of what people actually build.
> >
> >Where we disagree is whether 7 will actually be better than 6.  I don't
> >think it will for the reasons stated.  Do you think you can convince
> >your
> >company to build two test boards, one as 7 and one as 6?  The
> >alternative
> >is to run models, assuming we want to trust them.
> >
> >Regards,
> >
> >
> >Steve
> >
> >
> >At 10:12 AM 12/6/2004 -0800, Chris Cheng wrote:
> > >Steve,
> > >I would think
> > >
> > >7)
> > >Gnd
> > >Power
> > >Signal
> > >Signal
> > >Gnd
> > >Gnd
> > >
> > >with the fence and sea of vias and decoupling in between will be better
> >than
> > >6)
> > >
> > >For 4) it is obvious there is no edge containment.
> > >For 5) while the edge containment can help the first five layers, the
> >bottom
> > >power plane can still have noise current which solely relie on
> >decoupling
> > >caps that may or may not be effective and you will need a case like 6)
> >to
> > >ensure the complete edge containment (since you can short the gnd/power
> > >planes with vias).
> > >
> > >-----Original Message-----
> > >From: steve weir
> > >To: Chris Cheng; 'sguzek@xxxxxxxxx '; 'Si-List '
> > >Sent: 12/5/2004 11:30 PM
> > >Subject: RE: [SI-LIST] Re: Why is capacitor with high ESR
> > >
> > >Chris,
> > >
> > >No, I don't see a lot of value from the very low R's in existing
> > >caps.  Yes, lots of ground vias do divide the cavities up and cause a
> > >lot
> > >of scattering.  Unfortunately, even a good number of those vias rise to
> > >the
> > >surface to meet decoupling caps which then become a source of
> > >radiation.  This is not to mention the other signal vias that do the
> > >same
> > >thing.
> > >
> > >We could have some fun constructing some ML boards with a stackup
> >having
> > >at
> > >least two ground planes one close to each end of the stack-up that
> > >allows
> > >for a fence.  We could add more layers, but I think the following 6
> > >layer
> > >is adequate for the thought-problem / experiment:
> > >
> > >Gnd
> > >Power
> > >Signal
> > >Signal
> > >Gnd
> > >Power
> > >
> > >1.  Oscillator with nice fast CMOS drivers in the middle as our noise
> > >source, aside from local decoupling in the middle of the board, it will
> > >be
> > >an open cavity.
> > >2.  Same as 1. but with ground fence only at the board edges.
> > >3.  Same as 1. but with fence using DET with the best dissipative caps
> > >that
> > >we can get.
> > >4.  Same as 1, but with lots of ground  and power vias distributed
> > >around
> > >the board many connecting to decoupling caps on the surface.
> > >5.  Save as 4, but with fence as in 2.
> > >6.  Same as 4, but with DET as in 3.
> > >
> > >I believe that we agree that between 1, 2, and 3, that 3 will have the
> > >lowest radiation.
> > >I believe that we agree that between 1 and 4, 2 and 5, and 3 and 6,
> > >4/5/6
> > >will have lower radiation than 1/2/3 respectively.
> > >
> > >What I think you will find interesting is that of 4, 5, and 6, that 6
> > >offers considerable improvement over both 4 and 5.  This has been the
> > >subject of much of Istvan's work on the benefits of DET.  The impinging
> > >energy only hits the vias once on its way out to the board edge where
> >it
> > >is
> > >absorbed.  The "ice-cube trays" of 4. help to remove a lot of the
> > >coherency
> > >from the noise, but we are pretty much stuck with the dielectric losses
> > >to
> > >dump the HF energy into heat.  What does not become heat escapes on its
> > >way
> > >to Zontar.
> > >
> > >I hope that we can agree that an alternative demonstration is to break
> > >up
> > >the Vcc plane into sections that are tied together with lossy
> >decoupling
> > >
> > >networks.  Would you be surprised to find that the EMC performance of
> > >such
> > >a board with a thick cavity is much better than the same geometry board
> > >where the Vcc has not been divided, sic 1, or 4 from above?
> > >
> > >Regards,
> > >
> > >
> > >Steve.
> > >
> > >
> > >At 10:41 PM 12/5/2004 -0800, Chris Cheng wrote:

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