Minimizing crosstalk on printed circuit board using non uniform guard traces

This paper deals with implementing a simple technique to reduce crosstalk voltages of parallel traces on printed circuit boards (PCB). Crosstalk is one of the major signal integrity concerns in high-speed electronic circuits. A computational approach, based upon centered points finite difference time domain (FDTD) algorithm is proposed to investigate relevant circuits. The developed method consists of inserting a non uniform guard trace between two nearby transmission lines. The effect of the non uniform guard trace on reducing crosstalk level at terminations has been well illustrated.