Distributed Nonlinear Shielding in Power Delivery Networks on Printed Circuit Boards

Nonlinear shielding from voltage spikes is commonly designed in a one dimensional setting, e.g. on transmission lines, where protection consists of a single lumped voltage clamp. This paper investigates the extension to the two dimensional case, i.e. protection from a voltage pulse between two parallel plates of a PCB. Opposed to the one dimensional case, where the protection is concentrated in a point, for two dimensional case the protection elements are arranged on a curve, creating a nonlinear fence in the two dimensional plane. It is shown that the spacing of the elements on the curve has a strong impact on the shielding effectiveness. Additionally, the effect of resistive losses in the voltage clamps is investigated.