Comparative study of microstrip and stripline in the split reference plane of high speed digital circuit application

Signal integrity and EMI quality are compared between microstrip and stripline for the split reference plane of a multi-layer PCB. Designing a high-speed digital signal path as a stripline proved to be a solution to minimize the effect of a nonideal current return path. Simulations based on the 3D-FDTD method are utilized for the analysis of a practical high frequency multi-layered PCB.