[SI-LIST] : troubleshoot differential clock

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From: Perry Qu ([email protected])
Date: Wed May 02 2001 - 12:30:57 PDT


Hi! Everyone:

I have a case which need help from you guys:

On one card, there is a LVPECL differential pair running from a buffer
to the receiver. The total length of the pair is about 8 inches, with 50
ohm termination at the receiver side. (2 resistors terminated to pwr/gnd
for biasing also). The routing was not done properly, e.g., long
parallel run with other differential pairs; unsymmetrical routing
between the plus and minus, etc.

In the lab, the signal measured at reciever side shows strong
reflections, with non-monotonic points on the rising and falling edge,
which is bad for clocks. The measurement is well repeatable and smells
like some discontinueties problems. We did a simulation in XTK and we
saw some reflections (not as bad). By adding a series termination at
driver side (the driver is a really fast one, < 200 ps rise time), we
manage to eliminate the reflections almost completely. However, we did
not observe the same effect in the lab.

The next thing we tried is to do some TDR measurement on the bare board.
Since one of the TDR channel is not working properly, we can only
measure the single-ended impedance. There is some dips here and there on
both lines but none of them is bad enough to cause such bad signals at
receiver side. We plan to do the the differential TDR once we have the
sampling head repaired. But I doubt that is the reason.

Really appreciate your comments/suggestions on this.

Regards

Perry Qu



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