Concepts of Signal Integrity - Crosstalk

Whitepaper Overview

Crosstalk is one of the most common signal integrity issues engineers have to deal with. Crosstalk creeps up in electronic designs due to electromagnetic coupling between fringe electric and magnetic fields or transmission lines. Research has shown that any two loops nearby will have a loop mutual inductance between them. A signal carrying a time-varying current will couple from one loop to another through mutual inductance. Moreover, the same signal will have a time-varying voltage that will couple capacitively with neighboring traces. 

To solve crosstalk issues, it is important to understand the root causes. This whitepaper by Siemens Digital Industries Software will explore the main principles of crosstalk in PCB design and how engineers can minimize it. It investigates crosstalk in detail to understand what the difference is between near-end crosstalk and far-end crosstalk. As will be seen, each type of crosstalk has a unique electrical signature that can help designers identify it by looking at a time-domain transient simulation.