RE: [SI-LIST] : An Interesting Presentation

Mellitz, Richard ([email protected])
Wed, 21 Apr 1999 13:58:50 -0700

I agree with Dr. Johnson.. " The ratio (bus delay)/(clock period) is a key
indicator of bus design difficulty".
My limited experience suggests that system performance requirements
determine frequency. If you want more performance, either go wider or
faster. It's that "frequency in a box" that gives me the headaches! By "in
a box" I mean "constrained bus lengths". All else just follows. What you do
next are the details. E.g. find or build devices with slew rates that meet
your signal fidelity requirements at frequency, circuit topology, and
receiver characteristics. Now there is a direct relation between edge rate
and ring back, but I have a similar problem with I/V as well. The details go
on forever :-)

To summarize, I can easily design around a "bus in a box" that goes from 1
V/ns to 4 V/ns. We change the game when we go from 100MHz to 400MHz in my
box. These kind of changes impact how clocking is done with is real key to
difficulty,

Richard Mellitz
Sr. Staff Engineer
Intel
-----Original Message-----
From: Howard Johnson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 1999 12:51 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: Chuck Hill
Subject: Re: [SI-LIST] : An Interesting Presentation

Dear Chuck,
Thanks for you gracious remarks, which accurately
reflect the spirit of my presentation.

I should like to point out that in many applications,
the risetime and clock period are fairly closely related.
That is, if you look the range of bus architectures that
have
survived the "natural market selection process", you find
that
they typically specify a driver risetime that falls within
a relatively narrow range.
If the selected risetime is overly aggressive, the bus fails
due to the high cost of terminating, shielding, and power
supply filtering. Cheaper, lower-cost alternatives will
prevail.
If the selected risetime is too slow, the bus fails due to
persistent difficulties managing the timing budget.
Popular bus architectures seems to migrate towards a
risetime on the order of five to twenty percent
of the clock period.

For these reasons, I think it is reasonable when
contemplating the study of bus designs across mutiple
orders-of-magnitude of performance to assume that the
risetime
and period are closely enough related that one may look at
either period or risetime alone, and deduce from that
simple measure some useful insights.

Best regards,
Dr. Howard Johnson

At 02:24 PM 4/19/99 -0700, Chuck Hill wrote:
>Abe,
>
>I think your and Howard's point of view are both correct.
We SI people see
>risetime as a more relevant parameter than clock period.
But the digital
>designers that we work with can understand the bus delay
and clock period
>more clearly since the risetime is of only secondary
concern to them (if it
>is a concern at all). The value of Howard's "bus timing
ratio" is
>communicating a general level of difficulty of SI to
digital designers in
>their own terms. It is "a key indicator", but not the only
key indicator.
>
>
>Charles Hill, consultant
>Alta Engineering
>[email protected]
>
>
>At 09:53 AM 4/17/99 -0700, Abe Riazi wrote:
>>Dear All,
>>
>> Recently, I reviewed an interesting paper by Dr. Howard
Johnson, which
>>had been presented at DesignCon99. It is a PDF file
(busarch.pdf)
>>entitled: "Bus Architecture & Timing", available at the
High Speed
>>Design Web Site: http://www.signcon.com/
>>
>> The paper evaluates design difficulty of several
different buses in
>>terms of bus timing ratio defined by [( bus delay ) /
(clock period)].
>>The results are summarized below:
>>
>> Bus: PC-AT, Bus timing ratio:
0.008,
>>Mode: Slow , Design: Easy;
>>

>>
>> Bus: PCI, Bus timing ratio:
0.062,
>> Mode: Skew, Design:
-------;
>> Bus: RAMbus, Bus timing ratio: 2.5,
>>Mode: Distributed clock, Design: -------;
>>
>> Bus: Ethernet 10BASE-5, Bus timing ratio: 100,
Mode:
>>Time-space, Design: More difficult;
>>
>> In the final slide it is stated: " The ratio (bus
delay)/(clock
>>period) is a key indicator of bus design difficulty".
>>
>> Admittedly, I was surprised by the conclusion and
method of analysis
>>employed by this article. Here, a parameter dependent on
the PERIOD is
>>used to evaluate difficulty of bus design. It seems to me
that
>>"Critical Length" is preferable for appraisal of design
(or simulation)
>>complexity of a high speed bus architecture. The Critical
Length Lc
>>varies with the RISE TIME (i.e. Lc = k * Tr / D , where Tr
is the Rise
>>Time ), rather than with the period or frequency.
>>
>> Your comments are appreciated.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>>
>> Abe Riazi
>> Anigma, Inc.
>>
>>**** To unsubscribe from si-list: send e-mail to
>[email protected]. In the BODY of message put:
UNSUBSCRIBE
>si-list, for more help, put HELP. si-list archives are
accessible at
>http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu/si-list ****
>>
>
>
>**** To unsubscribe from si-list: send e-mail to
>[email protected]. In the BODY of message put:
UNSUBSCRIBE
>si-list, for more help, put HELP. si-list archives are
accessible at
>http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu/si-list ****
>
>
>
>
>
_________________________________________________
Dr. Howard Johnson, Signal Consulting, Inc.
tel 425.556.0800 fax 425.881.6149 email [email protected]

Upcoming High-Speed Digital Design seminars:
S E E - - - >>> WWW.sigcon.com

**** To unsubscribe from si-list: send e-mail to
[email protected]. In the BODY of message put: UNSUBSCRIBE
si-list, for more help, put HELP. si-list archives are accessible at
http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu/si-list ****

**** To unsubscribe from si-list: send e-mail to
[email protected]. In the BODY of message put: UNSUBSCRIBE
si-list, for more help, put HELP. si-list archives are accessible at
http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu/si-list ****

**** To unsubscribe from si-list: send e-mail to [email protected]. In the BODY of message put: UNSUBSCRIBE si-list, for more help, put HELP. si-list archives are accessible at http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu/si-list ****