In the last 30 years there have been dramatic changes in electrical technology--yet the length of the undergraduate curriculum has remained four years. Until some ten years ago, the analysis of transmission lines was a standard topic in the EE and CpE undergraduate curricula. Today most of the undergraduate curricula contain a rather brief study of the analysis of transmission lines in a one-semester junior-level course on electromagnetics. In some schools, this study of transmission lines is relegated to a senior technical elective or has disappeared from the curriculum altogether. This raises a serious problem in the preparation of EE and CpE undergraduates to be competent in the modern industrial world. For the reasons mentioned above, today's undergraduates lack the basic skills to design high-speed digital and high-frequency analog systems. It does little good to write sophisticated software if the hardware is unable to process the instructions. This problem will increase as the speeds and frequencies of these systems continue to increase seemingly without bound. This book is meant to repair that basic deficiency.

This is a brief but comprehensive book covering the set of EMC skills that EMC practitioners today require in order to be successful in high-speed, digital electronics. The basic skills in the book are new and weren’t studied in most curricula some ten years ago. The rapidly changing digital technology has created this demand for a discussion of new analysis skills particularly for the analysis of transmission lines where the conductors that interconnect the electronic modules have become “electrically large,” longer than a tenth of a wavelength, which are increasingly becoming important. Crosstalk between the lines is also rapidly becoming a significant problem in getting modern electronic systems to work satisfactorily. Hence this text concentrates on the modeling of “electrically large” connection conductors where previously-used Kirchhoff’s voltage and current laws and lumped-circuit modeling have become obsolete because of the increasing speeds of modern digital systems. This has caused an increased emphasis on Signal Integrity. Until as recently as some ten years ago, digital system clock speeds and data rates were in the hundreds of megahertz (MHz) range. Prior to that time, the “lands” on printed circuit boards (PCBs) that interconnect the electronic modules had little or no impact on the proper functioning of those electronic circuits. Today, the clock and data speeds have moved into the low gigahertz (GHz) range.

This lecture provides an introduction to transmission line effects in the time domain. Fundamentals including time of flight, impedance discontinuities, proper termination schemes, nonlinear and reactive loads, and crosstalk are considered. Required prerequisite knowledge is limited to conventional circuit theory. The material is intended to supplement standard textbooks for use with undergraduate students in electrical engineering or computer engineering. The contents should also be of value to practicing engineers with interests in signal integrity and high-speed digital design. Table of Contents: Introduction / Solution of the Transmission Line Equations / DC Signals on a Resistively Loaded Transmission Line / Termination Schemes / Equivalent Circuits, Cascaded Lines, and Fan-Outs / Initially-Charged Transmission Lines / Finite Duration Pulses on Transmission Lines / Transmission Lines with Reactive Terminations / Lines with Nonlinear Loads / Crosstalk on Weakly Coupled Transmission Lines

This book provides an introduction to transmission line effects in the time domain. Fundamentals including time of flight, impedance discontinuities, proper termination schemes, nonlinear and reactive loads, and crosstalk are considered. Required prerequisite knowledge is limited to conventional circuit theory. The material is tutorial for electrical and computer engineers on the topic of transient signals on transmission lines. Emphasis has been placed on aspects of the subject that have application to signal integrity and high-speed digital circuit design issues, including proper termination schemes to avoid impedance discontinuities, reactive and nonlinear loads, and an introduction to crosstalk. The coverage focuses on the very important topic of transmission line transients which have been de-emphasized in most current textbooks. This book is prepared to supplement traditional texts for advanced students studying electromagnetics and for a vast array of practicing electrical engineers, computer engineers and material scientists with interests in signal integrity and high-speed digital design. In this second edition, examples and new problems have been added throughout. A new chapter on differential transmission lines has also been incorporated

The coming of digital electronics has given rise to many textbook- outstanding among which are the authoritative works of Douglas Lewin- dealing, in the main, with the combinational and sequential logic aspects of system design. By comparison, the coverage of digital hardware has been meagre: in particular, books on logic circuit interconnections have been scarce in number. When circuits operated at relatively low speeds this did not cause major problems to engineers and students, but the increasing use of fast, and very fast, logic circuits employed extensively in modern digital systems has brought the requirement for properly-designed transmission paths between printed circuit boards, on the boards, and even in the integrated circuit packages themselves. turn, has necessitated a physical understanding of line pulse This, in behaviour, and an ability to design practically appropriate interconnection systems, by a far wider audience of engineers, scientists and students than has been the case hitherto. For many years the study of transmission lines was, primarily, the province of the telecommunications engineer sending high-frequency radio signals to antennas for radiation into space, and the power engineer working at low frequencies (50/60 Hz) but with corresponding wavelengths comparable with the relatively large distances involved in the supply of power from generating stations to remote users. The textbook treatment of lines was well established, but based mainly on the assumption of sinusoidal signals. This 'frequency-domain' approach is not best suited to the understanding of the transmission of digital signals.

This multimedia eBook establishes a solid foundation in the essential principles of how signals interact with transmission lines, how the physical design of interconnects affects transmission line properties, and how to interpret single-ended and differential time domain reflection (TDR) measurements to extract important figures of merits and avoid common mistakes. This book presents an intuitive understanding of transmission lines. Instructional videos are provided in every chapter that cover important aspects of the interconnect design and characterization process. This video eBook helps establish foundations for designing and characterizing the electrical properties of interconnects to explain in a simplified way how signals propagate and interact with interconnects and how the physical design of transmission structures will impact performance. Never be intimidated by impedance or differential pairs again.