Multisegment Multiconductor Transmission Line Model of High-Current Card-Edge Connectors With Analytically Calculated Model Parameters

Modeling of two high-current card-edge connectors is presented. The modeling methodology consists of dividing the connectors into uniform segments and modeling each segment by a multiconductor transmission line. The calculation of the perunit-length parameters of each segment is based on the analytic expression for a generalized capacitance matrix of widely separated conductors. The proposed modeling methodology generates the circuit model solely from the geometrical parameters of the connectors without the need to perform measurements and/or electromagnetic simulations. The modeling methodology is applied to two 62-pin high-current card-edge connectors that are used in the measurement setup for characterization of radiated electromagnetic emission of switched-mode power converters. Two printed circuit boards are designed to characterize the connectors and to validate the modeling methodology. The model of the complete characterization setup shows good agreement with the S-parameter measurements up to 3 GHz.