Abstract—Emerging wireline transmission systems aspire to deliver rates in the order of Gbit/s over short copper cables by exploiting higher frequencies and non-differential transmission modes. Reliable channel models are a prerequisite for system design and throughput predictions. In this paper, a MATLAB-based multi-wire transmission line modeling toolbox called MTL is presented. Based on Kelvin-model theory, MTL allows modeling of virtually any property (spanning the entire range from electrical properties such as voltages, currents, and impedances to system-level properties such as insertion loss or Shannon capacity) of multi-wire cables with arbitrary wire geometry. Compared to prior art, MTL allows exact computation of the capacitance matrix in a multi-wire system. Examples demonstrate the importance of this feature.

Index Terms—Channel modeling, kelvin model, multi-conductor transmission line modeling, wireline communications.

T. Magesacher is with the Department of Electrical and Information Technology, Lund University, P.O. Box 118, 22100 Lund, Sweden (e-mail:tom@eit.lth.se).

Cite: Thomas Magesacher, "MTL—A Multi-Wire Transmission Line Modeling Toolbox," International Journal of Computer and Electrical Engineering vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 52-55, 2013.