Eye Diagrams

EE290C – Spring 2011 V1

This is a “1”
V0 tb

Lecture 2: High-Speed Link Overview and This is a “0”

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

Elad Alon
With timing noise
Dept. of EECS

EE290C Lecture 2 4

Most Basic “Link” BER

clk

• BER = Bit Error Rate

• Average # of wrong received bits / total transmitted bits

• Keep in mind that your goal is to receive the • Simplified example: ⎛ Vin,ampl − Voff ⎞
(voltage only) BER = 12 erfc ⎜ ⎟⎟
same bits that were sent… ⎜ 2σ noise
⎝ ⎠
• BER = 10-12: (Vin,ampl – Voff) = 7σn
• BER = 10-20: (Vin,ampl – Voff) = 9.25σn
EE290C Lecture 2 2 EE290C Lecture 2 5

Why Wouldn’t You Get What You Sent? What About That “Wire”

Package

On-chip parasitic
Package
(termination resistance and via
Line card trace device loading capacitance)

Back plane trace Back plane connector Line card

via

Backplane via [Kollipara, DesignCon03]

EE290C Lecture 2 3 EE290C Lecture 2 6

“Wire” Models Links and Lengths
• ICs: usually use lumped models for wires • High-speed board-to-board connectors
• Capacitance almost always matters • Daughtercard (mezzanine-type)
• Sometimes resistance • Backplane connectors
• Less often inductance
• Distance: 8” up to ~40”
• Data-rate: 5-20Gb/s
• Works because dimensions << λ
• Wavelength in free space =
• Let’s look at some example λ and size numbers for
links • Wavelength on PCB (FR4) =

EE290C Lecture 2 7 EE290C Lecture 2 10

Links and Lengths Transmission Lines Quick Review

• Chip to chip on a PCB • Delay
• “Short” and relatively well controlled • Characteristic Impedance
• Packaging usually limits speed • Reflections
• Distance: 3-6” • Loss
• Data-rate: 1-12Gb/s
• Wavelength in free space =
• Wavelength on PCB (FR4) =

EE290C Lecture 2 8 EE290C Lecture 2 11

Links and Lengths Reflections

Z2 – Z 1 2Z2
• Cables connecting chips on two different --------------------
Z 1 + Z2
--------------------
Z 1 + Z2

PCBs (1) Energy conserved

• Cables are lossy, but relatively clean if coax Z1
(2) Voltages equal
Z2
• Connector transitions usually the bad part
• Sources of Reflections : Z - Discontinuities
• Distance: ~0.5m up to ~10’s of m (Ethernet) • PCB Z mismatch
• Data-rate: 1-10Gb/s • Connector Z mismatch
• Vias (through) Z mismatch
• Wavelength in free space =
• Device parasitics - effective Z mismatch
• Wavelength on PCB (FR4) = DC via Conn via BP

EE290C Lecture 2 9 EE290C Lecture 2 12

 Skin Effect Dielectric Loss cont’d
8 mil wide and 1 m long 50 Ohm strip line
• At high f, current crowds 0.0
along the surface of the
-10.0
conductor

Attenuation
• Skin depth proportional to f -½ -20.0
FR4

• Model as if skin is δ thick -30.0 Roger 4350

• Starts when skin depth equals -40.0

conductor radius (fs) 1.E+06 1.E+07 1.E+08 1.E+09 1.E+10

Frequency, Hz Kollipara DesignCon03

• FR4 cheapest – most widely used

• Rogers is most expensive –high-end systems
Figure © 2001 Bill Dally • May not matter that much due to surface roughness

EE290C Lecture 2 13 EE290C Lecture 2 16

Skin Effect cont’d Skin + Dielectric Losses

100MHz
100MHz 500MHz 1GHz FR4 dielectric, 8 mil wide and 1m long 50 Ohm strip line
1
0.9
0.8
Attenuation

0.7
0.6 Total loss
0.5 Conductor loss
0.4
0.3 Dielectric loss
0.2
0.1
Skin depth 0
δ=6.6 um δ=2.95 um δ=2.08 um 1.0E+06 1.0E+07 1.0E+08 1.0E+09 1.0E+10
Frequency, Hz Kollipara DesignCon03

• Skin Loss ∝ √f
W=210um、t=28um
• Dielectric loss ∝ f : bigger issue at high f

EE290C Lecture 2 14 EE290C Lecture 2 17

Dielectric Loss Everything Together: S21

• High frequency signals jiggle • S21: ratio of received vs. transmitted signals
molecules in the insulator
• Insulator absorbs energy Breakdown of a 26" FR4 channel with 270 mil stubs

1.0
PCB traces

• Effect is approximately linear 0.9

0.8
PCB traces & connectors
PCB traces, connectors & vias
with frequency 0.7
Transfer function

Entire channel
0.6
• Modeled as conductance term in 0.5
transmission line equations 0.4
0.3
0.2

• Dielectric loss often specified 0.1

in terms of loss tangent 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
−α D Length
• Transfer function = e Frequency, Hz

Table © 2001 Bill Dally

EE290C Lecture 2 15 EE290C Lecture 2 18
Real Backplane NEXT: What Not To Do

Tx Rx Tx
1

0.9

0.8
X X X X
0.7

0.6

Voltage, V
Tx
0.5 Rx
XTX
0.4

X X X X 0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Time, ps

EE290C Lecture 2 19 EE290C Lecture 2 22

Practical PCB Differential Lines NEXT: Better Design

µ - Strip Strip-line
W W S Tx
S
+ - ｔ ｔ
X X X X

H Rx
＋ −
εr H ｔ
H X X X X

ｔ ｔ 1

0.9

• Differential signaling has nice properties 0.8

0.7

• Many sources of noise can be made common-mode 0.6

Voltage, V

Tx
0.5 Rx
• Differential impedance raised as f(mutuals) between 0.4
XTX

wires 0.3

0.2
• Strong mutual L, C can improve immunity 0.1

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

EE290C Lecture 2 20 EE290C Lecture 2

Time, ps 23

Coupling Æ Crosstalk… Connectors Particularly Tough

NEXT FEXT
55 ps (20-80%) 55 ps (20-80%)
80ps (10-90%) 80ps (10-90%)
AB 4.4% 3.7%
DF 3.3% 2.6%
GH 3.3% 2.6%
• “Near-end” xtalk: NEXT (reverse wave) JK 4.3% 3.5%

• “Far-end” xtalk: FEXT (forward wave)

• NEXT in particular can be very destructive • Tight footprint constraints

• Full swing TX vs. attenuated RX signal • Hard to match pairs and even individual lines
• Good news: can control through design • May compensate skew on line card
• NEXT typically 3-6%, FEXT typically 1-3% • Also big source of impedance discontinuities
EE290C Lecture 2 21 EE290C Lecture 2 24
Skew Within Link Minimizing Via Stubs
• Thinner PCB? • Better vias?

• Need very tight control to maintain constant % of bit

time
counter-
• 1% skew on 30” line Æ 50ps skew bored
blind
via
• Half of a bit time at 10Gb/s
• Good news: connectors relatively “short” (~200ps) • All expensive: 1.1-2x
EE290C Lecture 2 25 EE290C Lecture 2 28

Reflections Revisited Summary

TX RX
DATA DATA

AT

AR

Connector-BP B

CT

transitions CR

gh-gh conn. (baseline) : Normalized Raw and eq pulse response: PR length after
main 60
10

A T, C T,
T,R
6 T,R R D
R
4
A2 T, B
• Packaging, chip connection, etc. can all have an effect…
T,R
R
2

-2 • Entire conferences dedicated to “signal integrity” (SI)

-4

-6
T
-8

EE290C Lecture 2 26 EE290C Lecture 2 29

Reflections Due To Via Stub Implications

FR-4 BP, Length: 20", T/S: 30/270 mil Roger BP, Length: 1.5", T/S: 30/270 mil
0
Attenuation [dB]

1.0 1.0

-10 9" FR4 0.9 0.9

0.8 0.8
Transfer function (s21)

0.7 0.7
-20
Transfer function

0.6 0.6
meas meas
0.5 0.5
-30 26" FR4 sim sim
0.4 0.4
0.3
-40 0.3
0.2 0.2
9" FR4, 0.1
-50 via stub
0.1
0.0 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 0.00 0.78 1.56 2.33 3.11 3.89 4.67 5.45 6.22 7.00
-60 26" FR4, frequency, GHz Frequency, GHz
via stub
0 2 4 6 8 10
frequency [GHz]
• Need to know range of channels you will face
• “Stub”: extra piece of T-line hanging off main path • Drives design of the link circuitry
• Usually leads to resonance (notch) • Start diving in to that next lecture
• Especially on thick backplanes, vias are a big culprit • Don’t be a pure “circuit weenie”
• Simple fixes to channel may go a long way…
EE290C Lecture 2 27 EE290C Lecture 2 30