With modern systems operating at microwave and millimeter wave frequency ranges, it is imperative to account for signal integrity issues and optimize hardware designs to mitigate these issues. At low frequencies, the system performs as designed, as the interconnects are oblivious to any other components in the system. As we move into high frequency ranges greater than 100 MHz, the characteristics of the printed circuit board (PCB), or a package and the interconnects, affect the quality of the signal. Dielectric material properties change with respect to frequency, and this is more prominent as the frequency of the signal increases. Two different kinds of dielectric characterization methods are employed here to extract the dielectric constant values at various frequencies. Both the two-line method and differential-phase method are based on the measurement of various lengths of transmission lines. Here, we used striplines with identical characteristics, other than two differing lengths to apply these methods. The extracted dielectric constant and the frequency values are used in the full-wave electromagnetic simulations of the striplines. The simulated results are correlated with the measurements for further signal integrity analysis. Particularly, the resonances caused by the impedance discontinuities of through-hole vias and microvias are analyzed. A parametric analysis of the different physical parameters of the vias is conducted to further optimize the via impedance to reduce discontinuity.
