Re: [SI-LIST] : High Speed Backplane Connector Recommendations

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From: Bruce W. Marler ([email protected])
Date: Thu Jan 13 2000 - 16:43:05 PST


Steve,

What if you put no ground plane, just two traces on a PCB by themselves?
Can we not look at these by themselves as a transmission line? If driven
differentially and with a well balanced source impedance will not the
current flowing down one trace then return down the other assuming they are
terminated in their characteristic impedance?

You may ask what advantage this would have. It might allow one to create
higher impedance PCB transmission lines.

It might have the disadvantage of worse EM radiation. But SI should be
good, shouldn't it?

Bruce

----- Original Message -----
From: sweir <[email protected]>
To: Bruce W. Marler <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2000 4:54 PM
Subject: Re: [SI-LIST] : High Speed Backplane Connector Recommendations

> Bruce,
>
> When we place two conductors in a diff pair over a ground plane, 85-90% of
> the energy in each lead couples to the ground plane, while the remaining
> 10-15% couples to the other trace in the pair. This is true whether we
> edge couple, or broadside couple.
> What this means is that if your ground plane does not provide a good
return
> path, then you will be subject both to SI and EMC problems you don't
> want. The bottom line is that even though you are using diff signals, as
> long as they are DC coupled, ( LVDS, BLVDS ), then you need to assign a
> good deal of your connector real-estate to signal ground, so that you can
> maintain a high frequency return path both for EMC and SI. If you miss
> this point, your timing will degrade, and you may end up with unmanageable
EMI.
>
> The AMP stuff is "Z-pack HS3", pricey, but very good. The data sheets are
> on their www site. If you can eat the power, you can drive those guys
with
> Vitesse 870/880's which i/f 2Gbps to FPGA's nicely with only one pair in
> the bp. If you are hell-bent on LVDS, there are several solutions out
> there to reliably move data at higher rates. Lucent has a four pair
ganged
> TX/RX module available in their ASIC's which moves 2.4Gbps as a single
> stream. You could also consider the channel link parts that clock line
> data reliably between 350 and 750 Mbps / pair, 1.4 - 3+Gbps / 5 pair.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Steve.
> At 04:19 PM 1/13/00 -0700, you wrote:
> >Steve,
> >What do you mean when you say that "most of the energy still couples
between
> >the returns and the individual signals in each pair"?
> >
> >Also what is the more expensive AMP connector that you refered to which
can
> >transport 2.4 Bbps signals?
> >Thanks
> >Bruce
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: sweir <[email protected]>
> >To: Bruce W. Marler <[email protected]>
> >Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2000 12:07 PM
> >Subject: Re: [SI-LIST] : High Speed Backplane Connector Recommendations
> >
> >
> > > Bruce,
> > >
> > > I think your plan has some scalability problems. Multidrop backplanes
are
> > > generally not a very good thing to use these days as the parasitics
place
> > > an upper limit which is very limiting, even using a fairly good
technology
> > > such as LVDS. It sounds like you are planning to use BLVDS on a
> > > non-redundant backplane.
> > >
> > > For connectors, the older and less expensive AMP 2mm hard metric,
which
> >has
> > > several alternate sources is not bad, provided you do your
> > > homework. Please remember that most of the energy still couples
between
> > > the returns and the individual signals in each pair, sic, make sure
you
> > > have adequate ground density. AMP has a much more expensive connector
> >line
> > > intended to reliably transport 2.4Gbps across backplanes than the HM
> > > stuff. The HM connectors are a better choice if your plan is to
remain at
> > > a fairly low performance of 100MHz on each wire pair. A single
connector
> > > provides 125 signal pins in 50MM. Realistically, you can get 48 good
> >pairs
> > > out of one such connector.
> > >
> > > I strongly recommend that you get a good SI consultant to review your
> > > backplane plan before you commit to your architecture. My concern
arises
> > > from the fact that the rise time on LVDS is between 100 and 300pS,
which
> > > makes even 0.1" of stub significant. You are more likely to see about
> > > 1". Also, the parasitic capacitance of many connectors could be a
serious
> > > problem. Most folks who want to handle a lot of bandwidth have long
since
> > > gone to point to point configurations for these reasons.
> > >
> > > Good luck with your MPEG2 endeavor.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Steve.
> > > At 10:40 AM 1/13/00 -0700, you wrote:
> > > >"Bruce W. Marler" <[email protected]>
> > >
> > >
>
>

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