Talk about ground suppression and interference in PCB design

What is the ground wire? The ground line defined by everyone in textbooks is that the ground line is the equipotential body that serves as the reference point for the circuit potential. This definition is not in line with the actual situation. The potential on the actual ground is not constant. If you measure the potential between the points on the ground with a meter, you will find that the potential at each point on the ground may vary greatly. It is these potential differences that cause the circuit to work abnormally. The definition of a circuit that is an equipotential body is only what people expect from the ground potential. HENRY gave the ground a more realistic definition. He defined the ground line as the low-impedance path of the signal flow back to the source. This definition highlights the flow of current in the ground. According to this definition, it is easy to understand the cause of the potential difference in the ground line. Because the impedance of the ground wire is not always zero, a voltage drop occurs when a current passes through a finite impedance. Therefore, we should imagine the potential on the ground as if it were a wave in the sea.

When talking about the potential difference between the points on the ground caused by the impedance of the ground wire, it can cause the circuit to malfunction. Many people think it is incredible: when we use the ohmmeter to measure the resistance of the ground wire, the resistance of the ground wire is often in the milliohm level. How can such a large voltage drop occur when current flows through such a small resistor, causing abnormal operation of the circuit.

Ground interference mechanism, common impedance interference When two circuits share a ground line, the ground potential of one circuit is modulated by the operating current of the other circuit due to the impedance of the ground line. The signals in such a circuit are coupled into another circuit, and this coupling is referred to as common impedance coupling.

In digital circuits, the ground line tends to exhibit a large impedance due to the high frequency of the signal. At this time, if there are different circuits sharing a ground line, the problem of common impedance coupling may occur.

Ground-line interference countermeasures, the ground loop countermeasures From the mechanism of ground-ground interference, it is known that the ground loop interference can be reduced by reducing the current in the ground loop. If the current in the ground loop can be completely eliminated, the problem of ground loop interference can be completely solved. Therefore, we propose the following solutions to solve the ground loop interference.

A. Float the device at one end. If one end of the circuit is floating, the ground loop is cut off, so the ground loop current can be eliminated. But there are two issues to be aware of, one is for security reasons, and often does not allow the circuit to float. At this point, consider grounding the device through an inductor. Thus, the grounding impedance of the 50 Hz alternating current device is small, and for the higher frequency interference signal, the grounding impedance of the device is larger, and the ground loop current is reduced. However, this can only reduce the ground loop interference of high frequency interference. Another problem is that although the device is floating, there is still a parasitic capacitance between the device and the ground. This capacitor provides a lower impedance at higher frequencies and therefore does not effectively reduce the high-frequency ground loop current.

B. Use a transformer to connect the devices. Use a magnetic circuit to connect the two devices to cut off the ground loop current. However, it should be noted that the parasitic capacitance between the primary and secondary of the transformer can still provide a path for the higher frequency ground loop current. Therefore, the method of transformer isolation has a poor effect on suppressing the high frequency ground loop current. One way to improve the high-frequency isolation of the transformer is to provide a shield between the primary and secondary of the transformer. However, it must be noted that the ground of the isolation transformer shield must be at the receiving circuit end. Otherwise, not only can the high-frequency isolation effect be improved, but also the high-frequency coupling can be made more serious. Therefore, the transformer is to be mounted on one side of the signal receiving device. A well-shielded transformer provides effective isolation at frequencies below 1 MHz.

C. Using Optical Isolators Another way to cut the ground loop is to use light to achieve signal transmission. This can be said to be the most ideal way to solve the problem of ground loop interference. There are two ways to connect optically, one is an optocoupler device and the other is connected by fiber optics. The optocoupler's parasitic capacitance is typically 2pf, providing good isolation at very high frequencies. Fibers have almost no parasitic capacitance, but they are not as good as optocouplers in terms of installation, maintenance, and cost.

D. Using a common mode choke on a connecting cable using a common mode choke is equivalent to increasing the impedance of the ground loop so that the ground loop current is reduced by a certain ground voltage. But pay attention to control the parasitic capacitance of the common mode choke, otherwise the isolation effect on high frequency interference is very poor. The larger the number of turns of the common mode choke, the larger the parasitic capacitance and the worse the effect of high frequency isolation.

There are two ways to eliminate the common impedance coupling to eliminate the common impedance coupling. One is to reduce the impedance of the common ground line portion, so that the voltage on the common ground line is also reduced, thereby controlling the common impedance coupling. Another method is to avoid the common grounding of the circuit which is easy to interfere with each other by an appropriate grounding method. Generally, the grounding circuit of the strong electric circuit and the weak electric circuit is avoided, and the digital circuit and the analog circuit share the ground line. As mentioned earlier, the core problem of reducing the ground impedance is to reduce the inductance of the ground. This includes the use of flat conductors for grounding and the use of multiple parallel conductors that are far apart. For printed circuit boards, the ground wire grid on the double-layer board can effectively reduce the ground line impedance. In the multi-layer board, the ground wire is specially used for one layer, although it has a small impedance, but this will increase the cost of the circuit board. . The method of grounding to avoid common impedance by proper grounding is parallel single point grounding. The disadvantage of parallel grounding is that there are too many wires grounded. Therefore, in practice, it is not necessary to connect all circuits in parallel at a single point. For circuits with less mutual interference, single-point grounding in series can be used. For example, the circuit can be classified according to strong signals, weak signals, analog signals, digital signals, etc., and then grounded in series with a single point in the same type of circuit, and different types of circuits are connected in parallel with a single point.

Summary: The main cause of electromagnetic interference in the PCB ground line is the impedance of the ground line. When the current flows through the ground line, it will generate voltage on the ground line. This is the ground line noise. Driven by this voltage, ground loop current is generated, causing ground loop interference. When two circuits share a ground line, a common impedance coupling is formed. The method for solving the ground loop interference is to cut the ground loop, increase the impedance of the ground loop, and use a balanced circuit. The solution to the common impedance coupling is to reduce the impedance of the common ground portion or to use a parallel single-point grounding to completely eliminate the common impedance.

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