Signal Integrity Performance Analysis of Mutual Coupling Reduction Techniques Using DGS in High Speed Printed Circuit Boards Muthuramalingam Sindhadevi 1 • Kanagasabai Malathi 1 • Arun Henridass 1 • Arun Kumar Shrivastav 2 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract In this article, the Signal Integrity performance analysis of mutual coupling reduction with defective ground structures (DGS) in high speed PCBs has been investi- gated. The performances of these structures are analyzed, in terms of Time domain, Error Vector Magnitude (EVM), eye pattern and timing jitter. A NRZ test signal with Quadrature Phase Shift keying modulation, with a carrier frequency of 3.5 GHz is used for the EVM measurements. From the EVM measurements, it is observed that the PCB with Circular DGS has the lowest EVM of 1.195 % rms compared to other techniques. Further, the eye pattern and jitter analysis show that the circular DGS has the lowest jitter value of 8 ps at 1Gbps data rate. Finally, the electromagnetic compatibility of proposed method is checked with the surface current distribution and radiated emission analysis. These investigations show that the adoption of the circular DGS in the high speed PCB design, reduces the spacing between two traces without degrading the signal quality. Keywords Coupled microstriplines Á Defective ground structures Á Time domain analysis Á Error vector magnitude Á Quadrature phase shift keying Á Eye diagram Á Electromagnetic compatibility 1 Introduction The Electromagnetic compatibility analysis of high speed interconnects designs has become imperative, due to rapidly increasing radio frequency interference and emerging technological trends. In order to achieve size reduction, the interconnects must be routed in close proximity to each other. This proximity of a large number of signal carrying & Muthuramalingam Sindhadevi sindhadevi@yahoo.com 1 Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Anna University, Chennai, India 2 Antenna Division, Center for Electromagnetics, SAMEER, Chennai, India 123 Wireless Pers Commun DOI 10.1007/s11277-016-3774-y