March 2017 • The PCB Design Magazine 43
3. M-Theory and the Higgs Boson, ABC Sci-
ence, Dr. Henryk Frystacki
4. Electromagnetic Problems Solving by
Conformal Mapping, Wesley Pacheco Calixto
5. Conformal Transformations in Electrical
Engineering, W. J. Gibbs
6. Comparing PCBs for Microstrip and
Grounded Coplanar Waveguide Circuits, John
Coonrod & Brian Rautio
Barry Olney is managing director
of In-Circuit Design Pty Ltd (ICD),
Australia. This PCB design service
bureau specializes in board-level sim-
ulation, and has developed the ICD
Stackup Planner and ICD PDN Plan-
ner software. To read past columns, or to contact
Olney, click here.
• A tightly coupled CPWG circuit with an
ENIG finish will suffer greater conductor loss
than a loosely coupled CPWG circuit with the
same ENIG finish.
• At approximately 2.7GHz, the resonant
behavior of the nickel component in ENIG in-
creases insertion loss. Therefore, SMOBC pro-
cessing should be considered for all high-speed
designs.
• Conformal transformation is a technique
that allows one to take difficult problems, map
them into a coordinate system, where they are
convenient to solve, and then find a relatively
simple solution.
PCBDESIGN
References
1. Barry Olney's Beyond Design columns:
Faster Than a Speeding Bullet, Surface Finishes
for High-speed PCBs
2. Make a Date with Another Dimension,
Cosmos Magazine, Paul Davis
Whether it's Industry 4.0,
self-driving cars or smart
home solutions – connected
machines and high-value
goods need security mecha-
nisms that can be updated.
The objective of the ALES-
SIO research is to develop
and assess these security
mechanisms. In this project
under the leadership of Infi-
neon Technologies AG, The
Technical University of Munich (TUM) collaborates
with companies like Siemens AG and the Munich-
based Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Inte-
grated Security.
Every new connected device in the Internet of
Things is a potential target: sensitive data and in-
formation that are not sufficiently protected could
be captured and used for further attacks.
This is why reliable protection for safety-critical
information is based on a combination of software
and hardware. The hardware – a security chip –
is comparable to a safe: a highly protected area
in which data and security
keys are stored separately
from the software. But due to
the long life-span of industrial
facilities e.g. manufacturers
need to be able to respond to
changed or new attack meth-
ods. Hence the data and se-
curity-relevant information in
these devices and industrial
plants have to be updatable.
Within the next three
years, the ALESSIO research partners will develop
updatable security solutions for such embedded
systems. One of the approaches is a conventional
hardware-based Secure Element with updatable
software. A Secure Element in complex, program-
mable logic devices (FPGA, field-programmable
gate array) is also underway. In the end, three
practice-oriented prototypes will show the solu-
tions' feasibility and functional capabilities.
The project runs until the end of 2019 and is
funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and
Research with approximately Euro 3.9 million.
Updatable Chips for a Safer Internet of Things
MICROSTRIP COPLANAR WAVEGUIDES
