Electrical Model of Microcontrollers for the Prediction of Electromagnetic Emissions

This work presents a new methodology to derive the equivalent circuit of the parasitic paths that propagate switching noise in mixed-signals integrated circuits and that usually lead to unintended crosstalk and electromagnetic emission issues. The methodology is based on small-signal analyses performed at the individual analog and digital microcontroller building block level, on electromagnetic simulations carried out to describe the power supply network at the chip- and at the package-level and on the analysis of the chip layout and process technology data to model the parasitic coupling paths through the semiconductor substrate. The electrical model of microcontrollers generated according to this methodology, consists of a low-complex and linear netlist that provides insight regarding the relationships between the design parameters and noise propagation paths in the early design phases, through simulations in a SPICE-like environment. The proposed approach does not rely on experimental test results. In this paper, the electric model of an 8 bit microcontroller, which validity has been proved by scattering parameter and conducted emission measurements, is derived.

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