Practical High Speed PCB Stackup Tool - Generation and Validation

In this paper, we successfully propose a quick and effective multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) stackup generation and validation tool based on Excel Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Its interface is user-friendly and the computed results meet our accuracy requirements. With known required structural parameters as the input, it is able to quickly generate a unique stackup profile in our pre-defined format. In addition to serving as a stackup generator, the developed tool could validate the accuracy of stackup profile suggested by PCB vendors as well. In order to cater for practical multilayer PCB manufacturing process which often makes single-ended/differential striplines sandwiched by two materials with different heights and dielectric constants, we apply both engineering approximation method and strict analytical method, aiming to derive closed-form solutions for immediate impedance calculation. For the purpose of verifying their efficacy, Polar Si9000 Impedance Quick Solver is adopted and the observed good agreement thus fully demonstrates the applications of developed multilayer PCB stackup tool in practical high speed PCB designs.