Electrical Characterisation and Design of Multilayer Thick Film Circuit Boards for High Speed Digital Applications

Numerical techniques and experimental methods for the electrical characterisation and design of large multilayer thick film circuit boards are discussed. The numerical techniques investigated here include the boundary element and finite element methods for the estimation of capacitance and inductance and the method of normal modes for the analysis of voltage crosstalk between coupled transmission lines. Three‐dimensional capacitance and inductance calculations are included for typical thick film signal line and power and ground grid plane configurations. Numerical results are compared with measured data obtained from carefully constructed test coupons. Electrical characteristics of several popular high speed logic families and their compatibility with multilayer thick film interconnects are discussed and guidelines for the design of large thick film circuit boards for high speed digital applications are presented.