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FEBRUARY 2021 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 63 • e peak amplitude of the stripline cross- talk is considerably less than microstrip • Stripline edge coupled signals can also be placed closer to each other compared to the microstrip equivalent leaving more space for routing • e easiest way to reduce crosstalk from a nearby aggressor signal is by increasing the spacing between the signals in ques- tion; crosstalk falls off very rapidly with distance • Different technologies should not be mixed as higher voltages create higher crosstalk • Long parallel trace segments and broad- side coupling should be avoided • e stripline configuration has about one-quarter of the crosstalk of the microstrip for the same spacing DESIGN007 Resources 1. Beyond Design: Controlling the Beast, by Barry Olney. 2. Trace Design for Crosstalk Reduction, by Scott McMorrow, Samtec. Barry Olney is managing director of In-Circuit Design Pty Ltd (iCD), Australia, a PCB design service bureau that specializes in board- level simulation. The company developed the iCD Design Integ- rity software incorporating the iCD Stackup, PDN, and CPW Planner. The software can be downloaded at www.icd.com.au. To read past columns or contact Olney, click here. Wireless communication directly between brains is one step closer to reality, thanks to $8 million in Department of Defense follow-up funding for Rice University neuroengineers. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funded the team's proof-of-principle research toward a wire- less brain link in 2018, has asked for a preclinical demonstration of the tech- nology that could set the stage for human tests as early as 2022. "We started this in a very exploratory phase," said Rice's Jacob Robinson, lead investigator on the MOANA Project, which ultimately hopes to create a dual- function, wireless headset capable of both "reading" and "writing" brain activity to help restore lost sensory function, all without the need for surgery. MOANA, which is short for "magnetic, opti- cal and acoustic neural access," will use light to decode neural activity in one brain and mag- netic fields to encode that activity in another brain, all in less than one-twentieth of a second. If the demonstrations are successful, he said the team could begin working with human patients within two years. "Most immediately, we're thinking about ways we can help patients who are blind," Robinson said. "In individuals who have lost the ability to see, scientists have shown that stimulating parts of the brain associated with vision can give those patients a sense of vision, even though their eyes no longer work." The project is funded through DARPA's Next-Gen- eration Nonsurgical Neuro- technology (N3) program. (Source: Rice University) Brain-to-Brain Communication Demo Receives DARPA Funding Jacob Robinson