Composite effects of reflections and ground bounce for signal vias in multi-layer environment

The signal propagating down the vias in a multi-layer environment will suffer from composite effects of reflected noise by via discontinuity and ground bounce between power/ground planes. An equivalent circuit modeling is proposed to simulate these effects, which consists of transmission line for signal line, lumped inductance and capacitance for via discontinuity, and two-dimensional field solver for the region between the power and ground planes. Simulations are performed for a four-layer structure and three different cases are considered to characterize both effects. Results show that the via discontinuity is dominant for reflected noise in the early time response, while the ground bounce is dominant in the late time response.