Signal Integrity Issues at Split Ground and Power Planes

Haw-Jyh Liaw and Henri Merkelo

Ultrahigh Speed Digital Electronics Research Laboratory
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
E-mail: liaw @lassi.ece.uiuc.eduhm@lassi.ece.uiuc.edu
A b s h c t -The signal integrity issues at split ground and power planes are studied by 3D, time-domain, full-wave simulations and SPICE circuit simulations. Dynamics of the mode
conversion between microstrip line mode and slotline mode is
presented as a series of snapshots of a computer animation.
Equivalent circuits based on transmission line model and mode
conversion are developed and validated by published experimental data. It is also demonstrated that under certain resonance conditions, the unwanted noise coupling between two
signal lines that cross the same ground slot can reach a very high
percentage. Design rules for choosing the slot width for isolated ground and power islands in mixed-signal environment
are also discussed.

Fig. 1. Examples of split ground and power planes.

I. INTRODUCTION

From a conventional signal integrity point of view, a slot in

the power or ground plane is a discontinuity in the signal return
path and, therefore, should be avoided. However, in practical
layouts, sometimes it is necessary to cut a slot in the ground or
power plane. For example, in a printed circuit board (PCB)
with just a few layers of metallization, cutting a power plane
into several pieces makes multiple power sources much easier
to distribute. Another example is that in case of high routing
complexity, cutting away part of the ground or power plane can
provide more space for routing. Moreover, an isolated power or
ground area, so called island, can be used to isolate a noisy or
sensitive circuit from other circuits. Such isolation islands are
useful for mixed-signal design where the noise generated by the
digital circuit must be kept away from the sensitive analog circuit. These three cases are illustrated in Fig. 1.
The ground slot is usually modeled as extra inductance in the
ground path[l]. Two signal lines that cross the same ground slot
share part of the ground inductance. When one signal line
switches, its return current flows through the ground inductance and induces ground bounce noise on the other line.
In this paper, a different way to look at such ground bounce
noise due to a slot in the ground or power plane is presented.
This point of view is based on the transmission line model and
mode conversion between microstrip line and slotline. In Section 11, the energy conversion from the signal line (microstrip
line) mode into the ground slot (slotline) mode is studied by 3D,
time-domain, full-wave simulation. The dynamics of such
mode conversion is presented as a series of snapshots of a computer animation.
In Section 111, an accurate and efficient equivalent circuit
model of the spilt ground or power plane is developed and validated by published experimental data. It is also demonstrated
that under certain resonance conditions, the unwanted noise
coupling between two signal lines that cross a ground slot can
reach a very high percentage. Therefore, cutting slots in the
ground or power planes must be carefully planned and accurately modeled.
0-7803-3286-5/96$4.00 01996 IEEE

When ground and power slots are used to isolate a noisy or

sensitive circuit, a few signal lines still have to cross over the
slots in order to provide necessary communication. In order to
minimize the reflection and coupling on these lines, a narrow
slot is preferred. On the other hand, in order to have better isolation, a wide slot is desired. Hence, a trade-off in practical design is inevitable. In Section IV, design rules for choosing the
slot width for such isolated islands in mixed-signal environment are discussed.

IL. MODE CONVERSION AT A GROUND SLOT

A 200 pm wide microstrip line that crosses over a 200 pm
wide ground slot is simulated by a time-domain, 3D full-wave
solver which is based on the transmission line matrix method[2]. The simulation results of a Gaussian pulse propagating
in a microstrip mode through a ground slot is presented in
Fig. 2. Since there is no conducting path between the two
ground planes A and B, the incident negative charge on ground
plane A cannot cross the gap. Hence, positive and negative polarization charges are created on the ground plane B in order to
balance the charge distribution. The induced negative charge
on ground plane B pairs with the transmitted positive charge on
the signal line and travels along the signal line. At the same
time, the induced positwe charge on ground plane B pairs with
part of the incident negative charge on ground plane A and travels along the ground gap. The remaining charges are reflected
back to the signal source.
Fig. 2 demonstrates that when a microstrip line signal crosses

a ground slot, two slotline signals are excited in the ground slot.
By reciprocity, a slotline signal can also excite two microstrip
line signals when it crosses a microstrip line. Such conversion
of energy between different modes is called mode conversion
and is modeled with equivalent circuits described in the next
section.
III. EQUIVALENT CIRCUITS FOR SPLIT
GROUND AND POWER PLANES
Fig. 3 shows the proposed equivalent circuit model of a signal line crossing over a ground slot. The capacitances due to the

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1996 ElectronicComponents and Technology Conference

sianal
., line

zo

ground slot

0 . .

Fig. 3. Equivalent circuits for a microstrip line that crosses

a split reference plane.

Fig. 2 Dynamics of mode conversion at a ground slot

fringing fields established between the signal line and the two
edges of the reference plane slot are modeled as two equal excess capacitances Cx. The signal line section located above the
slot is represented by inductanceh. The conversion of energy
between microstrip and slotline modes is modeled by the two
dependent sources in analogy with the conversion of energy between stripline and parallel plate waveguide mode reported in
[3]. As discussed in Section 11,when a signal line mode crosses
over a ground slot, the charge on the ground plane of the transmitted signal is created exclusively by polarization or displacement current. Therefore its magnitude is the same as the total
negative or positive charges of the two ground slotline modes.
This relationship is modeled by a current controlled current
source Zg which is shown in Fig. 3. The reciprocal part of such
mode conversion is modeled by a voltage controlled voltage
source V,.
In order to validate the model shown in Fig. 3, a comparison
is made between published experimental data[4] and simulation results obtained witlh the use of the above model. The layout of the sample as discussed in [4] is shown in Fig. 4; its equivalent circuits are presented in Fig. 5 . The characteristic impedances of the microstrip llines 20 and the slotline Zg, as well as
the excess capacitance (COat the open ends of the microstrip
lines, are calculated by published formulas[5],[61,[71. The excess capacitance and inductance at the cross-overs can be obtained by 3D static analysis. However, it is found that these excess reactive components at the cross-overs have very little effect on the simulation results. Hence, for simplicity they are not
shown in Fig. 5. The negligible excess capacitance and inductance at the cross-overs can be attributed to the fact that the
ground gap has a width of only 50 pm, which is much smaller
than the width of the microstrip line and the thickness of the
substrate. The remaining quantities in the equivalent circuits of
Fig. 5 are analogous to those shown in Fig. 3.
The coupling coefficient between the two microstrip lines is
simulated by SPICE in tlhe time domain and then Fourier transformed into the frequency domain for comparison to the reported spectral data. Fig;.6 shows the simulated coupling coefficient together with the experimental data. Very good agreement is obtained by this simple equivalent circuit.
The ground slot of the sample shown in Fig. 4 has a resonance
frequency of about 5 GH[z. As a result, the coupling coefficient
between the two microstrip lines is very close to unity from 2 to
8 GHz. For a ground slot with longer length, the resonance frequency would be lower. If the resonance frequency is close to
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1996 Electronic Components and Technology Conference

(output port)
signal line #2

that crosses an infinitely long gap, the transmission coefficient

T and reflection coefficient R of the signal line mode are given
by

signal line #1
(input port)

Fig. 4. Layout of the experimental sample as in [4]. Substrate

thickness=0.635 mm, er=9.7, all dimensions are in mm.

p
A
1
*
c
osignal

X =

line #1

T-

where X is the mode conversion coefficient. The mode conversion coefficient X is the ratio between the voltage magnitudes
of the excited ground slotline mode and the incident microstrip
line mode. It is given by
2z8

42,

+ Z , + jw(Z,J,C, + 2Lx) - 202L,C,Z,

(3)

When the frequency is low or the excess reactance& and Cx at

the cross-over can be ignored, then equations (1) through (3)
can be simplified to
(4)

signal line #2

Fig. 5. Equivalent circuits of the components as designed in

the experimental sample.
the system clock frequency, then severe noise coupling between signal lines that cross the ground slot is expected. Thus,
cutting slots in the ground or power planes should be carefully
planned and accurately modeled. The equivalent circuit developed here can be used to model such effects accurately and efficiently.
The coefficients for transmission, reflection, and coupling
depend on the overall geometry and the terminations. These
can be obtained by summing multiple reflections from the terminations or, alternately, use a circuit simulator such as SPICE
to arrive at a full response. For the equivalent circuits illustrated in Fig. 3, it can be shown that for an infinite signal line

experiment *
SPICE _______

If another signal line crosses over the same ground slot, the
generated slotline mode can couple to it through reciprocal
mode conversion. Again, if the frequency is low or the excess
reactance at the cross-over can be ignored, then the coupling
coefficient between the two signal lines is given by
T7

(7)

which is the same as the reflection coefficient in Equation (5).

It should be noticed that such coupling is independent of the
separation between the two signal lines as long as the loss of the
slotline mode is negligible.
In reality, the actual reflection and coupling coefficients also
depend on the terminations at the end points of both the signal
lines and the ground slot. Such general cases are most conveniently simulated by SPICE using the equivalent circuits developed here. Moreover, equations (4)-(7) can be used to do a
quick estimation, especially if the line length is long or the signal rise-time is short.

Iv.TRADE-OFF DESIGN IN CHOOSING THE

GROUND SLOT WIDTH

0.1

6 7 8 9

Frequency (GHz)

Fig. 6. Comparison between experiment and circuit simulation.

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In a multilayer PCB or multichip module (MCM), the noise

on the power distribution network is generated at vias[3] or
groundpower pins[8] in the form of parallel plate waveguide
modes. The generated parallel plate waveguide modes propagate radially away from their sources and induce noise on other
vias or ground/power pins. A ground or power gap can partially
block the propagation of parallel plate waveguide modes.
Hence, it is widely used to isolate a nois
from other circuits in multilayer PCBs.
1996 Electronic Components and Technology Conference

signal lines, width=w,

ground
power
gap width=wg

Fig. 7. Cross section of a four layer PCB

0.4

0.35

coupling noise Xc +ground noise xl00 @500MHZ

-+-

calculated coupling coefficient Xc (or reflection coefficient R )

between two long signal lines that cross a long gap. Since a
wider ground gap is a more severe discontinuity in the signal
return path than a narrow gap, the reflection and coupling grow
with increasing gap width wg.The curves shown here should be
used carefully, since they only indicate the magnitude of a
single event, without taking into account of terminations and,
therefore, multiple reflections. A detailed circuit simulation
including the actual terminations should be carried out for a full
characterization.
In general, if the noise budget for ground bounce and reflection noise is preset, then the maximum gap width can be determined. On the other hand, the minimum gap width is determined by the tolerable maximum coupling of the ground/power
noise across the gap.

V. SUMMARY

0
0

50

100

150 200 250

Gap width Wg (urn)

300

350

400

Fig. 8. Coupling coefficients between two parallel plate

waveguides through gaps (dotted) and between two signal
lines that cross the gaps (solid)

In summary, we have studied the signal integrity issues of

split ground and power planes. The mode conversion between
the signal line mode and the slotline mode is simulated by timedomain, 3D full-wave simulation and the dynamics of such
mode conversion is demonstrated graphically. The equivalent
circuits of the spilt ground and power planes are developed and
validated by published experimental data. The effects of noise
coupling between signal lines due to a ground or power slot is
investigated. Design considerations for choosing the appropriate ground slot width are discussed as well.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

When ground and power slots are used to isolate a noisy or

sensitive circuit, a few signal lines still have to cross the slots in
order to provide necessary communication. For the signal lines
that cross the ground or power slot, the slot is a discontinuity in
the signal return path. In order to have minimum reflection on
the signal lines, a narrow slot is preferred. On the other hand, in
order to have better isolation for groundpower noise, a wide
slot is desired. Hence, a trade-off in practical design is inevitable.
Although a ground or power gap can block the propagation of
the parallel plate waveguide modes, part of the electromagnetic
energy can still couple through the gap. In order to investigate
the coupling of ground/power noise across gaps, the structure
illustrated in Fig. 7 is used. The power and ground planes of the
four layer PCB are simulated by the aforementioned 30, timedomain, full-wave solver. The impulse response of a plane
wave (guided by the ground and power planes) normally incident onto the gaps is calculated and then transformed into frequency domain. It is found that for a PCB with a 200 pm line
width and 200 pm thickness per layer, the coupling of parallel
plate waveguide modes across a 50-400 pm gap is a linear
function of frequency up to approximately 20 GHz. The dotted
line in Fig. 8 is the calculated coupling coefficient of ground
power noise at 5OOMHz for various gap widths. As expected,
the coupling is larger for a smaller gap.
As discussed in Section 111, if the frequency is sufficiently
low or the dimensions of me gaps are sumcienuy smau (which
is generally true for most multilayer PCBs and MCMs), the
coupling coefficient between two long signal lines that cross
over a long ground gap is equal to the reflection coefficient as
shown in Equations ( S ) and (7). The solid line in Fig. 8 is the

The authors would like to thank the following people: Michael Dorneich for proofreading the manuscript, Mark Randel
for developing the post prcicessing tool, and Tim Hochberg for
developing the kernel of the electromagnetic solver.
REFERENCES

[ll Howard W. Johnson and Martin Graham, High SpeedDigital Design, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1993.
121 W. J. R. Hoefer, The transmission line matrix method theory and applications, IEEE Trans. Microwave Tkory
& Tech., vol. 33, no. 10, pp. 882-893, Oct. 1985.
[31 H.-J. Liaw and Henri Merkelo, Mode conversion at vias in
multilayer interconnections, in Proc. 45th ECTC Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, May, 1995.
[4] Bernd Schiippert, Microstrip/slotline transitions: Modeling and experimental investigation, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory & Tech,, pp. 1272-1282, Aug. 1988.
[SI K. C. Gupta, Ramesh Garg, and I. J. Bahl, Microstrip Lines
and Slotlines, Artech House, Dedham, MA, 1979.
[6] Ramesh Garg and K. C. Gupta, Expressions for wavelength and impedance of a slotline, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory & Tech., 1p. 532, Aug. 1976.
171 Minoru Maeda, An analysis of gaps in microstrip transmission lines, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory & Tech.,
pp. 390-396, June 1972.
[8] R. Mittra and C. Gordon, Electrical Depign of Packaging
Systems, Chapter 8 in Physical Architecture of VLSZ Syst e m , ed. by R.J. Hannemann, A. D. Kraus, and M. Pecht,
John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, 1994.

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1996 Electronic Components and Technology Conference