Introduction to Signal Integrity (SI):

In this chapter I will explain the basic concepts behind signal integrity including the most common
signal integrity issues and how they're quantified. we define signals as electrical quantities that is
voltages which are used to transfer information, in the real world signals are analog quantities but
nowadays signals are often used to represent digital information in the form of bits or ones and zeros
for example we can define voltages above this level as a logical one and voltage is below this level as
a logical zero.

A signal chain consists of three components the transmitter or the driver the channel or the
interconnect and the receiver. Signal integrity refers to as the ability of a system or signal chain to
transfer signals without excessive distortion from the driver to the receiver, another way of looking at
this is to say that signal integrity means being able to accurately reconstruct a transmitted waveform
at the receiver.

all data transmission systems introduce various types of degradations in the past we were often able
to ignore many of these degradations because the rate at which signals changed was very low and
the rise time of the signal was fairly long but as rise times decrease signal integrity becomes a much
more important issue and many modern high speed applications often have very short rise times
note that signals with shorter rise times also have more significant high frequency components.

Therefore signal integrity is most often associated with so-called high-speed digital design although
the transmitter and receiver also play important roles in signal integrity but I will focus more on the
influence of the channel in this chapter.

The different forms of Channel Degradation:

The principles of signal integrity and the way that degradations are measured or quantified apply to
the different channel format (PCB track, connectors, and cables), to better understand signal integrity
we're going to take a look at four of the most common forms of channel degradation:

- Impedance mismatches
- Frequency response
- Crosstalk
- Noise

There are many other factors involved in signal integrity but these are among most important for
high-speed digital design to minimize degradations.

Impedance Mismatches:

A signal should see a constant impedance along the path or trace, note that impedance is a point
concept so there's no guarantee that the impedance in the middle of a trace will be the same as the
impedance at the beginning or the end of a trace if there is an impedance mismatch or change at any
point this can cause reflections which in turn lead to signal distortion.

there are many different sources of mismatch on a PCB, changing the geometry or direction of PCB
traces is a common cause this includes things such as the presence of branches or t's improper
terminations or unterminated stubs can also cause reflections. the characteristics of a via such as hole
size pad size etc will also affect its characteristic impedance, and the return path taken by the current
are other common causes of impedance mismatches.
Frequency Response:

The signals may also be distorted due to frequency specific attenuation because attenuation or loss
usually increases as frequency increases if the loss were uniform for all frequency components the
received signal shape would remain the same but when only the higher frequency components are
attenuated this can cause distortion of the transmitted waveform as it moves through the channel
one of the more common sources of frequency dependent loss is the resistance of the conductors
themselves in addition the characteristics of pcb materials will also create different dielectric losses at
different frequencies.

Crosstalk:

Crosstalk refers to the coupling of energy between adjacent conductors or traces it's largely a
function of geometric dimensions and positioning, crosstalk can be created either by mutual
inductance and/or mutual capacitance often the terms aggressor and victim are used when
describing this coupling of energy.

In near-end crosstalk (NEXT) the signal coupling occurs close to the aggressor's transmitter, in far-end
crosstalk (FEXT) this coupling occurs at the far end of the aggressor's trace and just as with other
aspects of signal integrity crosstalk becomes a greater problem as signal rise time decreases there are
a number of different ways of minimizing crosstalk increasing the separation or distance between the
traces minimizing the length of parallel trace runs and placing conductors close to the ground plane
are some of the more common ways of minimizing crosstalk in PCB designs.

Noise:

Crosstalk could be considered an example of noise since crosstalk is an undesired external voltage
that is coupled onto our transmitted signal as you might imagine external noise that couples onto our
signal can cause a number of problems the most important one being that it lowers the signal-to-
noise ratio at the receiver another common source of noise that contributes to signal integrity issues
is noise introduced by the power supply and therefore power integrity can be an important factor in
overall signal integrity noise can also occur in the form of electromagnetic interference or EMI that's
coupled in either from external or internal sources of noise, we also refer this as electromagnetic
compatibility (EMC) which also influences overall signal integrity.

Tools to quantify the qualities of the channel:

The tools used to quantify the quality of the channel come from the digital and microwave world.
Thus, the analysis of the propagation channel is based on the theory of the S parameters. However,
we will see that there are S parameters specific to the study of differential signals.
S-Parameters:

All linear and invariant systems in time can be characterized by studying only its behavior at port
level. Its behavior is then described by a matrix whose frequency-dependent elements link the output
and input responses of the system to input excitation. Among the various existing matrices, the most
used for the characterization of the microwave systems is called "Scattering Matrix", better known by
the name of its elements: The S parameters.

The principle of this matrix is that instead of measuring the voltage and current at the system ports,
the S parameters relate the power of the "a" incident waves to the "b" reflective waves on each port.

In the case of a quadripole, the S parameters are the last of the ratios of "a" and "b". The term S11 is
calculated from the root of the ratio between the reflected power and the incident power on port 1
when port 2 is adapted. By analogy, the term S21 is the ratio between the power injected on port 1
and the power measured on port 2 when port 2 is adapted (transmission from 1 to 2).

With the S-parameter matrix, three types of analyzes can be conducted: reflection (Return Loss),
transmission (Insertion Loss) and coupling.

- Reflection Coeff (Return Loss):

The circuit shown on the figure has no reflection at the opposite end of the source because its
terminating impedance is equal to the characteristic impedance of the line. However, the impedance
of the source is different from the impedance of the line, so some of the energy is refigured at the
level of the impedance break between the source and the line. When the output is adapted, the
impedance brought back to the line entry is Zc, so we have:

Formula

- Insertion Loss:

When the power is injected on port 1 and measured on port 2, the S21 parameter is the
measurement of the power transmitted from port 1 to port 2 and is called "insertion losses".

Formula
 - Coupling Coeff:

For a 4-port network shown on the figure. As explained previously, to measure NEXT, a wave injected
on port 1 is measured on port 3 (parameter S31). By analogy, when a wave injected on port 1 is
measured on port 4, the FEXT is obtained (parameter S41).

Mixed-Mode S-parameters:

Multi-mode S-parameters are very useful for studying differential pairs because they allow to
visualize the channel state very quickly taking into account losses, reflections and conversions from
differential mode to common mode and vice versa. There are four types of multi-mode S-parameters:

- SDD : Differential to Differential Parameter

A differential signal can be applied to a port and be output as a differential signal.

- SDC : Common to Differential Parameter

A common signal can be applied to a port and be output as a differential signal

- SCD : Differential to Common Parameter

A differential signal can be applied to a port and be output as a common signal.

- SCC : Common to Common Parameter

A common signal can be applied to a port and be output as a common signal.

Eye Diagram:

Eye diagrams are used to assess the quality of transitions between different voltage states in other
words how cleanly does a signal transition from a 0 to a 1 or vice versa they can also provide numeric
information on parameters such as rise time signal amplitudes noise levels etc.

Eye diagrams are created by overlaying multiple UI (Unit Interval), degradations will close or narrow
the eye and often the nature or cause of this closing or narrowing can be determined by visual
inspection of the eye.

In addition masks can be used to quantify this level of closure, a mask is defined as a region where
the signal should not enter and a failure can be defined as any time the mask is violated. Eye
diagrams and masks are fundamental tools in signal integrity testing and therefore standards will
often specify the characteristics of the mask to be used during testing which allows a certain level of
BER to be respected.

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