Design and Integration of a Planar EBG for UWB Applications

Due to their efficiency in suppressing the propagation of simultaneous switching noise (SSN) between power and ground planes in electronic packages and PCBs, electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures have received widespread acceptance. Consequently, different configurations of EBGs (e.g., mushroom-type, planar and hybrid EBGs) have been developed. Planar EBGs are considered to be the most cost-effective because they require no vias or additional components. Hence they have received widespread acceptance. However, much of the work on planar EBGs has focused on suppressing SSN in a narrow band of frequencies. In this paper, we design and measured a planar EBG for ultrawideband (UWB) applications. We also study the impact of integrating a microstrip line in close proximity to the EBG. Our results reveal that the EBG causes resonances in the insertion loss of the transmission line. At the resonance frequencies, strong electromagnetic interaction occurs and much power is coupled away from the line into the cavity (e.g., at 5.6 GHz, 60% of power is lost from the line). To prevent such performance degradation after integration, EBGs should be designed under consideration of other components to be integrated in their immediate vicinity.