You have to watch this video of LeCroy’s Eye Doctor in action.Wow, is there anything this scope can’t do? For SerDes designs you get it all – de-embedding, emphasis controls, and more. From LeCroy’s website:

Eye Doctor II provides the channel emulation and de-embedding tools that engineers need for the next generation of serial data standards

Adds precision to signal integrity measurements

Vital for anyone using an 8 GHz or higher oscilloscope

Seamlessly integrates into LeCroy’s SDA II software for eye diagram and jitter analysis

Creates eye diagrams 50x faster than existing solutions

Uses industry standard Touchstone format S-parameter files for fixture and channel definition.

Ability to read single ended or mixed mode S-parameter files

DFE, FFE and CTLE Receiver Equalization

Fully integrated into the user interface which allows the engineer to use additional LeCroy tools for post-processing

Use Eye Doctor II’s Advanced mode to:

• Flexibly arrange components to allow any combination of de-embedding or emulation for Virtual Probing™ of any point in the test circuit not otherwise accessible

Increase measurement accuracy through the use of a more advanced transmitter and receiver termination model that incorporates customerspecific characteristics

I came across this low power IO presentation from WMED 2011 titled “Energy Efficient Multi-GB/s I/O: Circuit and System Design Techniques ” presented by Bryan Casper from Intel.

There is a lot of information in this presentation and it really shows the full design challenges of IO design to system design when considering power. There are some good slides on power delivery and Signal Integrity as well.

Well worth the read.

While this shouldn’t be surprising it is official that Apple is now the world’s largest semiconductor buyer. That’s a lot of iphones I’m surprised that Dell and Sony are still on the list considering the sluggish PC market.

I came across this article series on EMC Basics on the EE Times website and while it is about EMC/EMI design there is a lot of applicable information for Signal Integrity design as well.

So I definitely missed this but after reading some DAC news I saw that Physware is now Nimbic and has moved it’s previous offerings (3D field solvers) to a cloud environment. I think this makes sense since 1) 3D field solvers require a lot of raw compute power  and 2) package and PCB designs tend not to be as locked down as IP process designs. I think companies will be much more willing to have their package and PCB design data in the cloud.

What’s not mentioned here is the cost. It looks like you can rent the tool or pay by the hour? If you have enough users paying by the hour will work but will their be enough 3D field solving run time to generate revenue? Tough questions to answer.

I wonder if Signal Integrity PCB simulation and analysis tools should go to the cloud? A designer could upload their PCB design, select their design metrics, and then let the simulations run and send the user a report. Hmm, I’ll have to think about that one