Daniel Irwin Amey

Design, Modeling, and Characterization of Embedded Capacitor Networks for Core Decoupling in the Package

Embedded passives are gaining in importance due to the reduction in size of electronic products. Capacitors pose the biggest challenge for integration in packages due to the large capacitance required for decoupling high performance circuits. Surface mount discrete (SMD) capacitors become ineffective charge providers above 100 MHz due to the increased effect of loop inductance. This paper focuses on the importance of embedded capacitors above this frequency. Modeling, measurements, and model to hardware correlation of these capacitors are shown. Design and modeling of embedded capacitor arrays for decoupling processors in the midfrequency band (100 MHz-2 GHz) is also highlighted in this paper.

Improvements in Noise Suppression for I/O Circuits Using Embedded Planar Capacitors

The performance of embedded planar capacitors in noise suppression of input/output (I/O) circuits and improvements in board impedance profile have been investigated in this paper. Simultaneous switching noise (SSN) is a critical issue in todays systems and this paper shows performance improvements by introducing thin planar embedded capacitors in the board stack up. Measurement and modeling results by including the effects of transmission lines and the power ground plane pairs in the board stack up in the gigahertz range quantify the performance of the embedded capacitors.

I/O Decoupling in High Speed Packages Using Embedded Planar Capacitors

Embedded passives are gaining in importance due to the reduction in size of consumer electronic products. Embedded passives are gradually replacing discretes due to the miniaturization of electronic products. Integration of these passives within the package increases the real estate for active components. This would increase the functionality of the system. Among the passives, capacitors pose the biggest challenge due to the large capacitance required for decoupling high performance circuits. This paper will highlight the performance of DuPonts planar embedded capacitor laminates in organic packages to provide I/O decoupling for active circuits.