Christian Schuster, Research Staff Member, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Young Kwark, Research Staff Member, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Giuseppe Selli, Intern, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Prathap Muthana, Intern, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Vias in PCBs and packages are among the components of most concern with respect to signal and power integrity in high-speed communication systems. A good amount of research has been conducted to analyze their behavior. However, when it comes to "physical" or "physics-based" understanding and modeling, vias prove to be quite elusive, due to their complex environment. It seems that the lack of physical via models leads to increased design times and over-engineering, both of which negatively impact system cost. This presentation will review existing models and summarize the results, based on measurements and simulations.