What a very insightful discussion with Heidi Barnes of Keysight. In this episode, we will discuss all things simulations and power integrity in detail. We will dive into EM simulations, capacitor placement, Z, Y, and S parameters correlation measurements, and more! You will learn a lot from this episode!
Altium 365: Where the World Designs Electronics
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Show Highlights:
Heidi’s background and her 30 years of experience in the PCB design Industry
When she was only 17, she did an internship at Bill and Dave in Santa Rosa, which is now the Hewlett Packard (HP)
She got into the solar industry and aerospace
She is currently passionate about signal integrity and power integrity


Heidi stresses the importance of simulation tools and mentions the need for having reasonable rules of thumb and have an understanding of what to expect before you jump into a simulation tool
The Keysight’s PathWave ADS ( Advanced Design System) environment, what does it offer?
Running an EM simulation and getting results through the pro environments– PiPro (power integrity pro), SiPro (signal integrity pro)
On top of the DC analysis, it features a lot of great asymmetric tolerances analysis, current density, and thermal heat up effects analyses


Heidi talks about capacitor placement–lowering the path inductance, allowing a higher frequency, and giving a broader power delivery from the printed circuit board.
Capacitor Placement paper presented at DesignCon


Addressing specific peaks that are exceeding the target impedance in a problematic PCB
Heidi’s take on using ferrites
Steve Sandler has a great video about How to Design for Power Integrity–how to select a regulator
Z, Y, and S parameters–understanding simulation to measurement correlation
Heidi wrote a paper on SI Journal website: Power Integrity Fundamentals: Impedance vs. Frequency
She also tackles the “two-port shunt impedance measurement”


Watch for another episode with Heidi Barnes, tackling subjects related to all things SI and especially getting into measurement issues, coming soon!

Links and Resources:
Check out Heidi Barne’s articles on SI Journal website
Visit Keysight website
Read a previous interview with Heidi Barnes: Heidi Barnes, Senior Application Engineer and Power Integrity Product Owner
Watch Heidi Barnes Altium 2022 Presentation: What is Target Z and Why is Power Delivery AC Not DC? - AltiumLive 2022
Connect with Zack on LinkedIn

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Altium 365: Where the World Designs Electronics