A Signal Integrity Engineer's Companion

Book excerpt: A Signal Integrity Engineer’s Companion Real-Time Test and Measurement and Design Simulation Geoff Lawday David Ireland Greg Edlund Foreword by Chris Edwards, Editor, IET Electronics Systems and Software magazine Prentice Hall Modern Semiconductor Design Series Prentice Hall Signal Integrity Library Use Real-World Test and Measurement Techniques to Systematically Eliminate Signal Integrity Problems This is the industry’s most comprehensive, authoritative, and practical guide to modern Signal Integrity (SI) test and measurement for high-speed digital designs. Three of the field’s leading experts guide you through systematically detecting, observing, analyzing, and rectifying both modern logic signal defects and embedded system malfunctions. The authors cover the entire life cycle of embedded system design from specification and simulation onward, illuminating key techniques and concepts with easy-to-understand illustrations. Writing for all electrical engineers, signal integrity engineers, and chip designers, the authors show how to use real-time test and measurement to address today’s increasingly difficult interoperability and compliance requirements. They also present detailed, start-to-finish case studies that walk you through commonly encountered design challenges, including ensuring that interfaces consistently operate with positive timing margins without incurring excessive cost; calculating total jitter budgets; and managing complex tradeoffs in high-speed serial interface design. Coverage includes Understanding the complex signal integrity issues that arise in today’s high-speed designs Learning how eye diagrams, automated compliance tests, and signal analysis measurements can help you identify and solve SI problems Reviewing the electrical characteristics of today’s most widely used CMOS IO circuits Performing signal path analyses based on intuitive Time-Domain Reflectometry (TDR) techniques Achieving more accurate real-time signal measurements and avoiding probe problems and artifacts Utilizing digital oscilloscopes and logic analyzers to make accurate measurements in high-frequency environments Simulating real-world signals that stress digital circuits and expose SI faults Accurately measuring jitter and other RF parameters in wireless applications About the Authors: Dr. Geoff Lawday is Tektronix Professor in Measurement at Buckinghamshire New University, England. He delivers courses in signal integrity engineering and high performance bus systems at the University Tektronix laboratory, and presents signal integrity seminars throughout Europe on behalf of Tektronix. David Ireland, European and Asian design and manufacturing marketing manager for Tektronix, has more than 30 years of experience in test and measurement. He writes regularly on signal integrity for leading technical journals. Greg Edlund, Senior Engineer, IBM Global Engineering Solutions division, has participated in development and testing for ten high-performance computing platforms. He authored Timing Analysis and Simulation for Signal Integrity Engineers (Prentice Hall).