Efficient computation of radiated fields from finite-size printed circuit boards including the effect of dielectric layer

The rigorous analysis of a finite-size printed circuit board by the method of moments based on a full discretization of the whole three-dimensional structure requires a high numerical and modeling effort. A suitable simplification which drastically reduces the computation time is to use an equivalent-wire model for the traces situated within an homogeneous medium with an effective dielectric constant to account for the dielectric layer. For the subsequent determination of the radiated fields the dielectric layer is commonly ignored. In this paper we show in which cases this can lead to considerable prediction errors, and present a method based on polarization currents to include the effect of the dielectric layer, retaining the numerical efficiency of this approach. Examples are given to demonstrate the importance of the proposed extension