Investigations on Microstrip and Ground Plane Partial Inductance in Finite-Width Structures

This work deals with the inductive behaviour of microstrip traces, ground planes and similar structures for the purpose of conducted EMI simulation. Partial Element Equivalent Circuit (PEEC) simulations are performed for different pairings of trace-width, ground plane-width and height of trace over the ground plane. The results of the simulations are presented, compared with results from other software (FastHenry) and discussed. The observation was made that the ground plane’s partial inductance stays constant for most cases, independent of the trace width and trace height. In this work, an attempt is made to explain this phenomenon. Also, it was observed that the mutual partial inductance is mostly independent of trace width, however, a dependency of the ground plane width is given.