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Article: Ground fill.(signal integrity)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- EDN
- Article date:
- May 26, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Reed Business Information, Inc. (US). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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READER STEVE PURCELL WRITES: I've been using power and ground copper pours on every board I've done since taking a signal-integrity course years ago from another individual. I wonder whether they are helping me. I have a PMC card design that is failing, and I'm beginning to suspect the PCI trace impedance, because I can't find any other problems. Could the power and ground pours have changed the impedance to the point where the circuit is no longer functional? Do I really need these pours if I already have solid power and ground planes?
The "poured-ground" (more commonly called a "ground-fill") technique is useful on two-layer boards that lack solid reference ...