Thanks for your interest in High-Speed Digital Design!
In response to your question below, bypass capacitors near
a connector serve an important purpose.
When you send a signal from a chip, through a connector,
to a daughter card, consider the path of the returning
signal current (current always makes a loop, there is
always a returning signal current path).
>From the destination, current will return
along the power/ground system of the daughtercard, staying
on WHATEVER PLANE IS CLOSEST TO THE SIGNAL. If that
happens to be the power (+5v) plane, the returning
current flows there, right under the trace. Eventually,
the returning signal current reaches the connector.
Now imagine the connector has lots of ground pins (but few power pins).
The returning current (on the +5v plane) must now jump to the ground plane,
then flow to a nearby connector ground pin, and go through the
connector ground pin to the other board. If there is no
bypass capacitor nearby to help the return current make the
jump between planes, the returning current will have to substantially divert
away from the signal current in order to get from plane
to plane. Such a diversion would cause both crosstalk and EMI.
The bypass capacitors provide a path for returning signal
currents to jump between power and ground planes as needed
before moving through a connector. They play the same
role on the other side of the connector, helping the returning
signal current quickly hop to whatever plane is closet to the
source trace on the motherboard.
With 2-ns-risetime and faster logic, I lay out a row of regular bypass
capacitors on one side of the connector. If I am using a very close
spacing between ground pins on the connector (to control
crosstalk), then I try to locate the capacitors within a couple
of ground pin spacings of the connector.
BIG HINT: when using "impedance matched" connectors for
very high-speed applications, signals to and from the connector
are *best* routed on layers adjacent to whichever plane is most
naturally conveyed through the return-current signal pins of the connector.
I hope this answers your question,