Coupling and Crosstalk - What Causes Them

Two traces routed too close together share more than space; they share energy. That electromagnetic coupling is crosstalk, and it doesn't take much to cause bit errors, signal distortion, and chips receiving voltages outside their operating range. At Intel, three millivolts made the difference between a passing board and a failing one. This video shows you how to find exactly how much crosstalk is on your PCB using Sigrity X Aurora in Allegro X, and what to do about it when the numbers aren't acceptable. Crosstalk is predictable. Mismanaged electromagnetic fields are the root cause - and once you start thinking about every copper structure as a way to guide those fields, the fixes become obvious.