Electrical two and three dimensional modelling of high-speed board to board interconnections

In today´s high speed electronic systems, board-to-board connectors can contribute to signal degradation, reflections, and crosstalk. Methods exist for using computer modeling to predict the electrical behavior of interconnections from a knowledge of their materials and construction. A typical modeling process utilizes a combination of 2 or 3 dimensional electromagnetic field solvers to derive an approximate circuit model of the connector. Predictions of connector electrical performance are then obtained by plugging this connector model into a model test circuit and simulating the combination with circuit simulation software such as SPICE. As an example a six-row 2 mm-grid backplane connector is discussed in this paper