Girish Ramakrishnan
Satyam Computer Services, India

Integrated Circuit design and Printed Circuit Board design for years have had a close relation. The criticalities faced in PCB design at high and very high frequencies are applicable with the IC design too. The concepts of SI and EMS performance, which are very critical from the functional standpoint of the PCB, are equally critical from the IC standpoint too. A well designed IC that can be immune to signal integrity issues and EMS noise with an ably designed PCB will lead to a successful product. The intent of this article is to compare the similarities of the IC and the PCB design process. The author has taken Digital IC design and High Speed PCB designs as reference through out this article.