The Importance of Impedance Control in High-Speed PCB Design
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Nov 01.2018, 17:42:24
The Importance of Impedance Control in High-Speed PCB Design Designing a high-speed PCB can be a rite of passage for many junior-level PCB designers. While intuition and some best practices can make most low-speed PCB’s work just fine, high-speed PCB design relies on impedance control and precise calculations to ensure reliability. The goal of impedance control is to maximize signal power transfer from a driver to receiver, to minimize signal distortion caused by reflections, and to minimize the electromagnetic interference generated by critical signals. The one guiding factor for all things related to impedance control is that as the speed of a signal increases, it starts to behave less and less like a perfect-world model, and more like a transmission line. The burning question in most designers’ heads is, “how important is impedance control in my design?” The answer to which is, as always, it depends. What defines a high-speed signal and when should impedance control be considere...