Technologies of Interconnections in Electronics – Signal and Power Integrity Student Contest

Signal and Power integrity topics are of great importance in the current evolution of digital circuits. The innovations in the integrated circuit manufacturing process (i.e. smaller and faster switching transistors) and the new signal coding (e.g. Pulse Amplitude Modulation 4) allowed the industry to achieve new high digital speeds. However, this puts a lot of pressure on high-speed design when planning the stack-up, designing/placing the vias and managing the routing traces losses. As a result, the industry needs engineers with knowledge and skills to address the new challenges in emergent digital high-speed design. The university curriculum addresses some of the topics, but most of the time from a theoretical point of view. Through the collaboration between universities and industry, a student contest was created that has as purpose to address industry challenges. The students have the chance to apply what they learned during the university curriculum but are also acquiring new knowledge through the advanced training that takes place during the contest. The purpose is to build engineers with knowledge in high-speed digital design.