Full-Wave Solver for Microstrip Trace and Through-Hole Via in Layered Media

This paper reports major improvements to a 3-D full wave solver for a microstrip line and through-hole via in layered media. The interior layer problem, consisting of vias between two reference planes, is solved using the Foldy-Lax multiple scattering equations. The exterior layer problem is solved using the method of moments (MoM) with the layered media Green's functions. The exterior layer and interior layer problems are combined to obtain the S-parameters of the trace and through-hole via. A fast approach for calculating the layered-medium Green's functions using the numerical modified steepest descent path method is utilized. The Green's functions require milliseconds to compute per point. Schemes for efficiently computing image contributions for the static portion of the mixed potential Green's function are also implemented to solve the neighboring or self-RWG (basis function) interaction in the MoM problem. To validate the accuracy of the solution, extensive comparison with Ansoft's HFSS versions 9 and 11 for different pad sizes and antipad sizes are presented. The CPU per frequency is also tabulated to demonstrate the speed of the approach in this paper.