How to Design for Power Integrity: Finding Power Delivery Noise Problems

Focus:

In this video, Steve explains how rogue waves are generated in power distribution networks (PDNs) and how they can be simulated in Keysight’s ADS tool using simple models of PDNs and programmed load sources. He then shows how Keysight’s ADS Optimizer can be used to determine which load pattern will produce the largest rogue wave (i.e maximum voltage excursion) given some reasonable constraints on the load and target impedance. The explanations are clear because he starts with simple mathematical explanations for the case of where the PDN has a single resonance and then simulates the system response to that single resonance before working his way up to the case where he simulates a system with three impedance resonances. Finally, he comments on the likelihood of rogue waves in real systems, providing an example calculation to suggest that these are not necessarily rare events. The moral of this video is that system designers need to keep the impedance of their PDNs flat to avoid generation of rogue waves and a final simulation shows that the same load pattern that produced a worst case rogue wave does not produce excessive voltage excursions when the PDN impedance is flat. Steve prefaces the discussion by defining power integrity concepts like PDNs and target impedance, but these are issues he has discussed at length previously.

What you’ll learn:

• How to understand the causes of rogue waves in power distribution networks and how to simulate them using Keysight’s ADS tool
• How to use Keysight’s ADS Optimizer to determine the load pattern that will produce the largest rogue wave (i.e. max voltage excursion) in a PDN

View the Source

Author & Publication:

Steve Sandler, Picotest, YouTube, Jun 08 2015

This article summary appears
in the HOW2POWER Design Guide.

The Design Guide offers
organized access to
hundreds of articles
on dozens of power conversion
and power management topics.

The Design Guide search results
include exclusive summaries
and accurate "how to" analysis
to help you make faster,
more informed decisions.

Search
for more articles