Thierauf Design & Consulting: Signal Integrity Design, Analysis & Training

A New Lab Manual Is Coming!

I have a new lab manual introducing the basics of power integrity in the works!

This new manual is the next volume in the lab manual series and follows the same format as the signal integrity lab manual: A concise chapter discussing concepts and theory is followed by a chapter detailing the experiments you can perform to see for yourself how those ideas perform in action, on real hardware.

The experiments use a solderless protoboard and a few inexpensive through-hole ICs. To perform all of the experiments you’ll need an oscilloscope (a scope having a 50 or 100MHz bandwidth is fine), a signal generator, a 5V benchtop power supply and a DMM. Rather than a bench supply some of the experiments can be powered by a 9V battery, and some of the projects show you how to make your own signal source instead of requiring a signal generator.

There are three chapters of experiments and three theoretical background chapters covering the sources of power supply noise, decoupling in the time domain and decoupling in the frequency domain. Three appendices and a bibliography close out the book. The appendices show you how to build and test an optional RF voltmeter and how to build a current sensor so you can see how a DCAP provides charge when an IC switches.

This book is aimed at the student, technician or engineer wishing to perform experiments to understand the roots of power supply noise, why it’s a problem in CMOS systems, and wanting to understand by doing decoupling as seen from the time domain and the frequency domains.

Contact me here if you’d like more information