EE290C Spring 2011

Lecture 2: High-Speed Link Overview and Environment

Elad Alon Dept. of EECS

Most Basic Link

Keep in mind that your goal is to receive the same bits that were sent

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Why Wouldnt You Get What You Sent?

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Eye Diagrams
V1 V0

This is a 1 tb This is a 0

Ve

Eye Opening - space between 1 and 0 te With voltage noise With timing noise With Both!

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BER

clk

BER = Bit Error Rate

Average # of wrong received bits / total transmitted bits

Simplified example: (voltage only)

Vin ,ampl Voff BER = 1 2 erfc 2 noise

BER = 10-12: (Vin,ampl Voff) = 7n BER = 10-20: (Vin,ampl Voff) = 9.25n

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What About That Wire

Package On-chip parasitic Line card trace

(termination resistance and device loading capacitance)

Package via

Back plane trace

Back plane connector

Line card via

Backplane via
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[Kollipara, DesignCon03]
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Wire Models
ICs: usually use lumped models for wires
Capacitance almost always matters Sometimes resistance Less often inductance

Works because dimensions <<

Lets look at some example and size numbers for links

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Links and Lengths

Chip to chip on a PCB
Short and relatively well controlled Packaging usually limits speed

Distance: 3-6 Data-rate: 1-12Gb/s

Wavelength in free space = Wavelength on PCB (FR4) =

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Links and Lengths

Cables connecting chips on two different PCBs
Cables are lossy, but relatively clean if coax Connector transitions usually the bad part

Distance: ~0.5m up to ~10s of m (Ethernet) Data-rate: 1-10Gb/s

Wavelength in free space = Wavelength on PCB (FR4) =

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Links and Lengths

High-speed board-to-board connectors
Daughtercard (mezzanine-type) Backplane connectors

Distance: 8 up to ~40 Data-rate: 5-20Gb/s

Wavelength in free space = Wavelength on PCB (FR4) =

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Transmission Lines Quick Review

Delay Characteristic Impedance Reflections Loss

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Reflections
Z2 Z 1 ------------------Z 1 + Z2 2Z2 ------------------Z 1 + Z2

Z1

Z2

(1) Energy conserved (2) Voltages equal

Sources of Reflections : Z - Discontinuities

PCB Z mismatch Connector Z mismatch Vias (through) Z mismatch Device parasitics - effective Z mismatch
DC via Conn via BP

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Skin Effect
At high f, current crowds along the surface of the conductor Skin depth proportional to f - Model as if skin is thick Starts when skin depth equals conductor radius (fs)

Figure 2001 Bill Dally

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Skin Effect contd

100MHz 100MHz 500MHz 1GHz

Skin depth =6.6 um

=2.95 um

=2.08 um

W=210umt=28um

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Dielectric Loss
High frequency signals jiggle molecules in the insulator
Insulator absorbs energy

Effect is approximately linear with frequency

Modeled as conductance term in transmission line equations

Dielectric loss often specified in terms of loss tangent

Transfer function =
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e D Length

Table 2001 Bill Dally

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Dielectric Loss contd

8 mil wide and 1 m long 50 Ohm strip line 0.0 Attenuation -10.0 -20.0
FR4

-30.0 -40.0 1.E+06 1.E+07

Roger 4350

1.E+08 Frequency, Hz

1.E+09

1.E+10

Kollipara DesignCon03

FR4 cheapest most widely used Rogers is most expensive high-end systems
May not matter that much due to surface roughness
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Skin + Dielectric Losses

FR4 dielectric, 8 mil wide and 1m long 50 Ohm strip line 1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 1.0E+06 1.0E+07 1.0E+08 1.0E+09 1.0E+10 Frequency, Hz

Attenuation

Total loss Conductor loss Dielectric loss

Kollipara DesignCon03

Skin Loss f Dielectric loss f : bigger issue at high f

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Everything Together: S21

S21: ratio of received vs. transmitted signals
Breakdown of a 26" FR4 channel with 270 mil stubs
1.0 0.9 0.8 Transfer function 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0E+00 5.0E+08 1.0E+09 1.5E+09 2.0E+09 2.5E+09 3.0E+09 3.5E+09 4.0E+09 Frequency, Hz
PCB traces PCB traces & connectors PCB traces, connectors & vias Entire channel

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Real Backplane

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Practical PCB Differential Lines

- Strip
W

Strip-line
W S

+
r

H H

Differential signaling has nice properties

Many sources of noise can be made common-mode Differential impedance raised as f(mutuals) between wires Strong mutual L, C can improve immunity
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Coupling Crosstalk

Near-end xtalk: NEXT (reverse wave) Far-end xtalk: FEXT (forward wave) NEXT in particular can be very destructive
Full swing TX vs. attenuated RX signal

Good news: can control through design

NEXT typically 3-6%, FEXT typically 1-3%
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NEXT: What Not To Do

Tx

Rx Tx
1 0.9 0.8

X
Voltage, V

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 Time, ps Tx Rx XTX

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NEXT: Better Design

Tx
X X X X

Rx
X X X X

1 0.9 0.8 0.7 Voltage, V 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 Tx Rx XTX

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Time, ps

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Connectors Particularly Tough

NEXT FEXT 55 ps (20-80%) 55 ps (20-80%) 80ps (10-90%) 80ps (10-90%) 4.4% 3.7% 3.3% 2.6% 3.3% 2.6% 4.3% 3.5%

AB DF GH JK

Tight footprint constraints Hard to match pairs and even individual lines
May compensate skew on line card

Also big source of impedance discontinuities

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Skew Within Link

Need very tight control to maintain constant % of bit time 1% skew on 30 line 50ps skew
Half of a bit time at 10Gb/s

Good news: connectors relatively short (~200ps)

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Reflections Revisited
TX DATA AT AR RX DATA

Connector-BP transitions
10

B CT CR D
gh-gh conn. (baseline) : Normalized Raw and eq pulse response: PR length after main 60

T, T,R R

C A2
T, T,R R

T, T,R R

-2

-4

-6

-8

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Reflections Due To Via Stub

Attenuation [dB] 0 -10 -20 -30 -40 -50 -60 0 2 4 9" FR4, via stub 26" FR4, via stub 6 8 10 frequency [GHz] 26" FR4 9" FR4

Stub: extra piece of T-line hanging off main path Usually leads to resonance (notch)
Especially on thick backplanes, vias are a big culprit
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Minimizing Via Stubs

Thinner PCB? Better vias?

counterbored

blind via

All expensive: 1.1-2x

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Summary

Packaging, chip connection, etc. can all have an effect

Entire conferences dedicated to signal integrity (SI)

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Implications
FR-4 BP, Length: 20", T/S: 30/270 mil
1.0 0.9
Transfer function (s21) 1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.00 0.78 1.56 meas sim

Roger BP, Length: 1.5", T/S: 30/270 mil

0.8 Transfer function 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.00 0.50 1.01 1.51 2.01 2.52 3.02 3.52 4.02 4.53 5.03 5.53 frequency, GHz meas sim

2.33

3.11 3.89

4.67

5.45

6.22 7.00

Frequency, GHz

Need to know range of channels you will face

Drives design of the link circuitry Start diving in to that next lecture

Dont be a pure circuit weenie

Simple fixes to channel may go a long way
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