Mandatory Internship Standardized High-Speed PCB Test Structures

High-speed automotive interconnects increasingly operate at high frequency, where PCB materials and manufacturing variations strongly influence channel performance. Differences between PCB suppliers - such as laminate properties, copper foil roughness, and stackup implementations - can lead to significant variations in signal integrity metrics such as insertion loss, impedance, and propagation delay.

This internship focuses on the development of standardized high-speed PCB test coupons that enable objective comparison of materials and manufacturing processes across different suppliers. The goal is to design a universal measurement coupon containing multiple test structures that allow the characterization of key electrical parameters including insertion loss, dielectric loss, copper roughness effects, impedance, and glass-weave-induced skew.

The project contributes to establishing a repeatable measurement methodology for high-speed channel characterization, enabling supplier-independent evaluation and supporting robust high-speed PCB design.

• During your internship you will analyze existing PCB test structures to evaluate their suitability for signal integrity and material characterization.
• You will develop standardized PCB test coupons using multiple high-speed characterization structures, this involves implementing specific structures such as multi-line striplines, differential transmission lines, roughness measurement lines, and skew-sensitive trace patterns.
• Using electromagnetic field solvers, you will simulate these structures to make precise predictions about impedance and loss behavior.
• Furthermore you perform VNA (vector network analyzer) measurements on the manufactured coupons to acquire broadband S-parameters.
• From the measurement data, you extract important electrical parameters such as insertion loss, dielectric losses, propagation delay, and impedance.
• Lastly you compare the results from different materials or suppliers, evaluate their reproducibility and contribute to defining a standardized measurement as well as evaluation methodology.