Electronic – Coplanar Waveguide Calculations PCBS, AppCAD v.s. Online calculators

pcbtoolswaveguide

So lately I noticed that the Coplanar Waveguid calculations of AppCAD (http://www.hp.woodshot.com/) did not give the same result as the online calculators do.

https://chemandy.com/calculators/coplanar-waveguide-with-ground-calculator.htm

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http://wcalc.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/coplanar.cgi
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AppCAD:
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Can anyone explain this?

P.S. this is the same for the microstrip calculations.

Does anyone has any experience which calculator works more accurate?

Best Answer

Compare the two: -

  • One gives an electrical length of 0.0871 wavelengths and the other gives 0.086
  • One gives a \$Z_0\$ of 53.3 ohms and the other gives 53.1 ohms

One of the calculators asks for metal thickness (Tmet) the other probably assumes some value like 0.35 mm.

Now ask yourself if the results are really that different and might they have a significant bearing on the signals passing down them.