Modeling and estimation of crosstalk across a channel with multiple, non-parallel coupling and crossings of multiple aggressors in practical PCBS

In Section 1, the focus is on alleviating the modeling challenges by breaking the overall geometry into small, unique sections and using either a Full-Wave or fast equivalent per-unit-length (Eq. PUL) resistance, inductance, conductance, capacitance (RLGC) method or a partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) for the broadside coupled traces that cross at an angle. The simulation challenge is resolved by seamlessly integrating the models into a statistical simulation tool that is able to quantify the eye opening at BERs that would help electrical designers in locating crosstalk sensitive regions in the high speed backplane channel designs. Section 2 investigates the FEXT crosstalk impact on eye opening at a specified bit error rate (BER) at different signal speeds for broadside and edge side differential coupled traces in inhomogeneous media and compared the results against homogeneous media models. A set of design guidelines regarding the material, coupled length and stackup parameter selection is formulated for designers based on the signaling speeds. The major objective of the study in Section 3 is to determine quantitatively the effect of crosstalk due to periodic broadside coupled routing. Another objective is to help designers figure out the “dos” and “don’ts” of broadside coupled routing for higher signaling rates. A new methodology is proposed in Section 4 to generate BER contours that capture the Tx driver jitter and ISI through the channel accurately using unique waveforms created from truth table bit combinations. It utilizes 2N short N bit patterns as waveforms and jitter correlation from current bit pattern into adjacent bit patterns to get equivalent transient simulation of a very large bit pattern. --Abstract, page iii

Delay Extraction based Macromodeling with Parallel Processing for Efficient Simulation of High Speed Distributed Networks

This thesis attempts to address the computational demands of accurate modeling of high speed distributed networks such as interconnect networks and power distribution networks. In order to do so, two different approaches towards modeling of high speed distributed networks are considered. One approach deals with cases where the physical characteristics of the network are not known and the network is characterized by its frequency domain tabulated data. Such examples include long interconnect networks described by their Y parameter data. For this class of problems, a novel delay extraction based IFFT algorithm has been developed for accurate transient response simulation. The other modeling approach is based on a detailed knowledge of the physical and electrical characteristics of the network and assuming a quasi transverse mode of propagation of the electromagnetic wave through the network. Such problems may include two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) power distribution networks with known geometry and materials. For this class of problem, a delay extraction based macromodeling approaches is proposed which has been found to be able to capture the distributed effects of the network resulting in more compact and accurate simulation compared to the state-of-the-art quasi-static lumped models. Furthermore, waveform relaxation based algorithms for parallel simulations of large interconnect networks and 2D power distribution networks is also presented. A key contribution of this body of work is the identification of naturally parallelizable and convergent iterative techniques that can divide the computational costs of solving such large macromodels over a multi-core hardware

Fluidic, Solid-State, and Hybrid Reconfiguration Techniques in a Frequency and Polarization Reconfigurable Antenna

This work presents the development of a hybrid reconfiguration technique used to achieve both frequency and polarization diversity in a 2.4 – 2.5 GHz microstrip antenna. This hybrid solution for the first time combines current state-of-the-art fluidic and solid-state reconfiguration mechanisms in a collaborative effort. Two orthogonally-crossed and co-located narrow microstrip patches with gap discontinuities separating a central probe-fed section from the radiating slots provides the base antenna structure. The fluidic mechanisms use high strength dielectric fluids or liquid metal loaded across the gap discontinuities and the solid-state mechanisms uses readily available RF PIN and varactor diodes integrated across the gaps to enable reconfiguration. Accurate and robust circuit modeling concepts are presented to provide insight on antenna performance and loss mechanisms from each reconfiguration technique. A polarization-only reconfigurable version of this antenna utilizing dielectric fluids, RF PIN didoes, and liquid metal in separate design iterations were examined to introduce design and circuit modeling concepts and provide a first comparison between the reconfiguration techniques. While all iterations achieved good linear polarization switching, dielectric fluids and the RF PIN didoes are found to have large negative impacts on radiation performance due to ohmic losses (radiation efficiencies between 8 – 35%). In the liquid metal iteration, ohmic losses are significantly reduced to boost radiation efficiencies near that of a tradition patch antenna (near 80%). The hybrid reconfiguration solution utilizes liquid metal and solid-state varactors for polarization and frequency diversity, respectively. Non-hybrid design iterations using only dielectric fluids and solid-state RF PIN diodes with varactors provide a comparison between all reconfiguration techniques and demonstrate the advantages of the hybrid solution. It was found that broadly variable dielectric strength fluids used as a sole reconfiguration mechanism can achieve a wide frequency tuning range of 700 MHz, maintain linear polarization switching, and have radiation efficiencies near 60%. However, the fluids must have loss tangents less than 0.02 and are currently not readily available. The RF PIN and varactor diode combination provides a realizable solution, however, suffers from excessive DC control power requirements, a limited tuning range of 100 MHz, and low radiation efficiency around 16%. The hybrid solution combines the best aspects of all subsequent design iterations to achieve a realizable frequency and polarization reconfigurable antenna with a tuning range of 263 MHz and 41.7% radiation efficiency average across reconfiguration states

Antenna theory in resonating systems derived from fundamental electromagnetism

In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden Konzepte der Antennentheorie mit denen der Mikrowellentheorie verkn¨upft, um eine “Antennentheorie innerhalb resonierender Systeme” zu formulieren. Resonierende Systeme sind in diesem Zusammenhang als r¨aumliche Umgebungen definiert, innerhalb derer sich elektromagnetische Resonanzen (“stehende Wellen”) ausbilden k¨onnen. Eine Antennentheorie innerhalb resonierender Systeme bietet einen geeigneten Rahmen zur Modellierung innerer Probleme der elektromagnetischen Vertr¨aglichkeit. Diese Modellierung beinhaltet haupts¨ achlich die Untersuchung der Wechselwirkung von Antennen, wobei elektromagnetische St¨orquellen durch sendende Antennen und elektromagnetische St¨orsenken durch empfangende Antennen repr¨asentiert werden. Unsere Vorgehensweise orientiert sich an den folgenden drei Fragestellungen:1. Welche Gleichungen bestimmen das Verhalten von Antennen innerhalb resonierender Systeme (physikalische Modellbildung und mathematische Formulierung)?2. Welche mathematischen Methoden sind anzuwenden, um diese Gleichungen hinreichend genau und schnell auswerten zu k¨onnen (analytische und numerische L¨osungsverfahren)?3. Welche Schlussfolgerungen lassen sich aus den gewonnenen L¨osungen ziehen (physikalische Interpretation und technische Anwendung)?Um auf diese Fragestellungen ad¨aquat eingehen zu k¨onnen, ist die Kenntnis der grundlegenden Konzepte der klassischen Elektrodynamik unabdingbar. Diese Konzepte werden in Kapitel 1 vollst¨andig eingef¨uhrt und interpretiert. Die gew¨ahlte Darstellung ist als Kombination von Maxwellscher Axiomatik und eichtheoretischer Beschreibung origin¨ar. Eine wichtige Konsequenz ist die Identifikation der zwei komplement¨aren Arten von Singularit¨aten des elektromagnetischen Feldes, welche durch Coulomb-Singularit¨aten und elektromagnetische Resonanzen gegeben sind. Entsprechend lassen sich elektromagnetische Felder in Coulomb-Felder und Strahlungsfelder unterteilen. F¨ ur die in praktischen Anwendungen auftretenden elektromagnetischen Felder ist eine exakte Aufspaltung in diese beiden Feldanteile in der Regel nicht m¨oglich. Diese untrennbare Verkn¨upfung von Coulomb-Anteilen und Strahlungsanteilen ist der haupts¨ achliche Grund f¨ ur die bei der Formulierung und Anwendung einer Antennentheorie in resonierenden Systemen auftretenden Schwierigkeiten. &nbsp

Locating transient disturbance sources and modelling their interaction with transmission lines:use of electromagnetic time reversal and asymptotic theory

This thesis deals with the application of electromagnetic time reversal to locating transient disturbance sources and the use of the asymptotic theory for the modelling of their interaction with transmission lines. We demonstrate that the time-of-arrival, which is one of the most commonly used methods to locate lightning discharges, can be seen as a special case of time reversal. The problem of a lossy ground that affects the propagation of electromagnetic transient fields generated by a lightning strike is addressed by proposing three different back-propagation models and comparing their performances in terms of location accuracy. Two sets of simulations are carried out to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed approaches. The first set of simulations is performed using numerically-generated fields and the proposed algorithm is shown to yield very good results even if the soil is not perfectly conducting. In particular, it is shown that considering a model in which losses are inverted in the back-propagation yields theoretically exact results for the source location. We also show that a lack of access to the complete recorded waveforms may lead to higher location errors, although the computed errors are found to be within the range of performance of the present LLSs. A second set of simulations is performed using the sensor data reported by the Austrian Lightning Location System (ALDIS). The locations obtained by way of the EMTR method using only the available sensor data (amplitude, arrival time and time-to-peak), are observed to be within a few kilometres of the locations supplied by the LLS. The possible sources of this discrepancy are discussed in the thesis. The second part of this document deals with the computation of the current induced in a line due to an external electromagnetic field. We derive high-frequency expressions for the current induced along a multiconductor line by an external plane wave, in which the effects of the terminals of the line are modelled by matrices of scattering and reflection coefficients. Different approaches are proposed to compute the coefficients that feed the analytical expression for the current induced along the line. Using an iterative method, mathematical expressions are derived, for the particular case of open-circuit lines. For the general case of arbitrary line terminations, an approach using auxiliary short lines, solved with a numerical solver is proposed. At low frequencies, the proposed three-term formulation can be adapted to lossy lines and analytical expressions for the coefficients, providing a new and elegant formulation for the classical transmission line theory. The proposed theory is validated through numerical simulations and experiments and is found to be much more effective than the traditional full-wave approaches in terms of memory requirements and computational times. The asymptotic theory is also applied to a lumped source excitation, according to a procedure analogous to the one for a plane wave excitation. A method for the determination of matrices of coefficients is also presented

Nonlinear mechanisms in passive microwave devices

Premi extraordinari doctorat curs 2010-2011, àmbit d’Enginyeria de les TICThe telecommunications industry follows a tendency towards smaller devices, higher power and higher frequency, which imply an increase on the complexity of the electronics involved. Moreover, there is a need for extended capabilities like frequency tunable devices, ultra-low losses or high power handling, which make use of advanced materials for these purposes. In addition, increasingly demanding communication standards and regulations push the limits of the acceptable performance degrading indicators. This is the case of nonlinearities, whose effects, like increased Adjacent Channel Power Ratio (ACPR), harmonics, or intermodulation distortion among others, are being included in the performance requirements, as maximum tolerable levels. In this context, proper modeling of the devices at the design stage is of crucial importance in predicting not only the device performance but also the global system indicators and to make sure that the requirements are fulfilled. In accordance with that, this work proposes the necessary steps for circuit models implementation of different passive microwave devices, from the linear and nonlinear measurements to the simulations to validate them. Bulk acoustic wave resonators and transmission lines made of high temperature superconductors, ferroelectrics or regular metals and dielectrics are the subject of this work. Both phenomenological and physical approaches are considered and circuit models are proposed and compared with measurements. The nonlinear observables, being harmonics, intermodulation distortion, and saturation or detuning, are properly related to the material properties that originate them. The obtained models can be used in circuit simulators to predict the performance of these microwave devices under complex modulated signals, or even be used to predict their performance when integrated into more complex systems. A key step to achieve this goal is an accurate characterization of materials and devices, which is faced by making use of advanced measurement techniques. Therefore, considerations on special measurement setups are being made along this thesis.Award-winningPostprint (published version

Time-Domain Macromodeling of High Speed Distributed Networks

With the rapid growth in density, operating speeds and complexity of modern very-large-scale integration (VLSI) circuits, there is a growing demand on efficient and accurate modeling and simulation of high speed interconnects and packages in order to ensure the signal integrity, reliability and performance of electronic systems. Such models can be derived from the knowledge of the physical characteristics of the structure or based on the measured port-to-port response.In the first part of this thesis, a passive macromodeling technique based on Method of Characteristics (referred as Passive Method of Characteristics or PMoC) is described which is applicable for modeling of electrically long high-speed interconnect networks. This algorithm is based on extracting the propagation delay of the interconnect followed by a low order rational approximation to capture the attenuation effects. The key advantage of the algorithm is that the curve fitting to realize the macromodel depends only on per-unit-length (p.u.l.) parameters and not on the length of the transmission line. In this work, the PMoC is developed to model multiconductor transmission lines.Next, an efficient approach for time domain sensitivity analysis of lossy high speed interconnects in the presence of nonlinear terminations is presented based on PMoC. An important feature of the proposed method is that the sensitivities are obtained from the solution of the original network, leading to significant computational advantages. The sensitivity analysis is also used to optimize the physical parameters of the network to satisfy the required design constraints. A time-domain macromodel for lossy multiconductor transmission lines exposed to electromag¬netic interference is also described in this thesis based on PMoC. The algorithm provides an efficient mechanism to ensure the passivity of the macromodel for different line lengths. Numerical examples illustrate that when compared to other passive incident field coupling algorithms, the proposed method is efficient in modeling electrically long interconnects since delay extraction without segmentation is used to capture the frequency response.In addition, this thesis discusses macromodeling techniques for complex packaging structures based on the frequency-domain behavior of the system obtained from measurements or electromagnetic simulators. Such techniques approximate the transfer function of the interconnect network as a rational function which can be embedded with modern circuit simulators with integrated circuit emphasis (SPICE). One of the most popular tools for rational approximations of measured or simulated data is based on vector fitting (VF) algorithms. Nonetheless, the vector fitting algorithms usually suffer convergence issues and lack of accuracy when dealing with noisy measured data. As a part of this thesis, a methodology is presented to improve the convergence and accuracy issues of vector fitting algorithm based on instrumental variable technique. This methodology is based on obtaining the “instruments” in an iterative manner and do not increase the complexity of vector fitting to capture the frequency response and minimize the biasing

Stochastic electromagnetic field propagation: measurement and modelling

This paper reviews recent progress in the measurement and modelling of stochastic electromagnetic fields, focusing on propagation approaches based on Wigner functions and the method of moments technique. The respective propagation methods are exemplified by application to measurements of electromagnetic emissions from a stirred, cavity-backed aperture. We discuss early elements of statistical electromagnetics in Heaviside’s papers, driven mainly by an analogy of electromagnetic wave propagation with heat transfer. These ideas include concepts of momentum and directionality in the realm of propagation through confined media with irregular boundaries. We then review and extend concepts using Wigner functions to propagate the statistical properties of electromagnetic fields. We discuss in particular how to include polarization in this formalism leading to a Wigner tensor formulation and a relation to an averaged Poynting vector

Detection and Classification of Fault Types in Distribution Lines by Applying Contrastive Learning to GAN Encoded Time-Series of Pulse Reflectometry Signals

T This study proposes a new method for detecting and classifying faults in distribution lines. The physical principle of classification is based on time-domain pulse reflectometry (TDR). These high-frequency pulses are injected into the line, propagate through all of its bifurcations, and are reflected back to the injection point. According to the impedances encountered along the way, these signals carry information regarding the state of the line. In the present work, an initial signal database was obtained using the TDR technique, simulating a real distribution line using (PSCADTM). By transforming these signals into images and reducing their dimensionality, these signals are processed using convolutional neural networks (CNN). In particular, in this study, contrastive learning in Siamese networks was used for the classification of different types of faults (ToF). In addition, to avoid the problem of overfitting owing to the scarcity of examples, generative adversarial neural networks (GAN) have been used to synthesise new examples, enlarging the initial database. The combination of Siamese neural networks and GAN allows the classification of this type of signal using only synthesised examples to train and validate and only the original examples to test the network. This solves the problem of the lack of original examples in this type of signal of natural phenomena which are difficult to obtain and simulate

Time-domain Analysis of Multiconductor Transmission Lines Excited by Transient Electromagnetic Disturbances Based on the Analog Behavior Modeling

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen