Analysis of Mesh Ground Impact on Microstrip Lines in Flexible Printed Circuits

Meshed ground (GND) planes are widely used in flexible printed circuit boards to reduce weight and increase flexibility. However, analyzing the impact from the meshed GND in a transmission line structure can be challenging. In this paper, an extraction method is proposed to obtain the characteristic impedance of a transmission line over the meshed GND planes. With the proposed method, a systematic study was carried out to investigate the relationship between the meshed GND plane geometric parameters and the trace characteristics.