Investigation on the scaling properties of a novel electromagnetic band-gap structure for application to parallel-plate noise suppression

A metamaterial based solution for parallel-plate noise reduction in power planes of digital and mixed-signal fast circuits is presented. The solution consists of embedding a periodic patterned surface between two dielectric layers and two metal planes. The novelty stems from the shape of the metal motif of the patterned surface of the unit cell. In each unit cell nine vias connect the metal patch to the ground; other four posts are posed on the metal patch in order to slow down the electromagnetic waves. The filtering properties of the device are assessed by numerically calculating the dispersion diagrams. Starting from small dimensions (2.5 mm), the device has been sequentially up-scaled until its selective properties met the requirements of the application, i.e. reduction of noise up to 6 GHz. Limits of the electromagnetic band-gaps are reported for various scales.