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54 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2020 Introduction The amount of information transferred on wireless networks has increased dramatical- ly with the growth of mobile phones, internet access, and handheld devices. The transmis- sion of a high-speed RF signal is increasingly required in PCBs to handle massive data in electronic sys tems. The transmission speed of signals propagating inside the system has been increasing. RF signal loss, also known as in- sertion loss, becomes remarkable on a PCB in the higher GHz frequency ranges. Insertion loss is the loss of signal power resulting from the insertion of a device in a transmission line or optical fiber and is expressed in decibels (dB). Insertion loss could lead to rising edge degrada- tion of signals or higher rate bit error and so on. All PCB materials have both conduction and dielectric RF signal losses. The conduction losses are resistive and are caused by the con- ductive copper layer used in the board. The dielectric losses, on the other hand, are asso- ciated with the substrate (insulating material) used in a PCB. In this column, I will highlight resistive conduction losses by the copper layer used in the board. The study of transmission loss involves plotting the electrical behavior (scattering matrix), mea- sured in dB, of linear electrical networks when un- dergoing various steady-state stimuli by electrical signals versus increasing signal frequency (GHz). Transmission loss, also known as insertion loss, is the extra loss produced by the introduction of the device under test (DUT) between the two ref- erence planes of the measurement. The extra loss may be due to intrinsic loss in the DUT and/ or mismatch. In case of extra loss, the insertion loss is defined to be positive. The negative of insertion loss expressed in dB is defined as insertion gain. Minimizing Signal Transmission Loss in High-Frequency Circuits The Plating Forum by George Milad, UYEMURA