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Re: HARI Systems Design




How long of traces are you getting on FR-4? Have you actually fabricated
these?

Our network analyzer tests indicate that FR-4 dies horribly (lossy) above
about 1.5 Gb/s. By the time we get to 3 GHz all the analyzer is displaying
is the analyzer receiver input noise, looking in vain for signals......
(HP8752C)

Your Tricks & Tips look like they would help, but I would be very
interested in hearing from anyone who claims to have successfully used FR-4
in 5+ GHz circuits over more than 3-4 inches and, if so, what kind of signals.

Thanks,

Larry Miller

At 08:49 AM 11/24/99 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Edward
>
>I agree with Joel on this.  I am presently designing 2 GBS traces on FR4
and see no
>problem with 3.125 GBS or there-abouts.
>
>As Joel has indicated one must pay careful attention to the geometrys,
further one
>must use good connectors that stay at 50 ohms up to several Ghz.
>
>Of special intrest:
>    1.    relieve ground/power planes under all component pads to the height
>        required for the pad to look like a 50 ohm line.
>    2.    relieve the ground/power planes far enough out to eliminate
fringing
>        capacitance to a unimportant consideration, or relieve the
ground/power
>        planes all the way through and depend on the fringing capacitance.
 It may
>        be necessary to use a field solver to simulate it or to make a
model and
>        measure impedances.
>    3.    relieve via ground/power layers far enough away to keep them from
>        being less than 50 ohms.
>    4.   pay careful attention to via stubs.  Blind vias and the like may be
>required.
>    5.    pay careful attention to power line bypassing, simulate on-chip
>capacitance,
>        package capacitance, PCB capacitance and discrete bypass capacitors.
>
>Do these all well and you should be ok.  Note that the Hari interface was
designed
>to meet the need to provide a geometry that works using FR4  to 10 GBS with
>real-world PCB traces.  The frequency dependent loss and reflections at 10
GBS
>raw would be nearly impossible to compensate.  At 3.125 GBS we still have a
>workable solution.
>
>Ron Miller
>
>Joel Goergen wrote:
>
>> I am not sure Ed got the right name in here, because I don't agree with
most of
>> it.  :)
>>
>> > However, it violates a lot of high-frequency circuit design rules; as a
>> > result, it may make HARI a unreliable block in a system.
>>
>> I don't see it violating any rules.
>>
>> > Furthermore, additional circuit, HARI, is working against our successful,
>> > Ethernet practice of keeping it simple, and low-cost -- unless we
prove HARI
>> > is a "MUST" for 10GbE product, it should be an optional block.
>> >
>> > For an extremely high frequency PC layout, the path-length should be
kept as
>> > short as possible.  The PCB characteristic impedance has about +/- 20%
>> > tolerance which will cause waveform distortion being severe enough at 2.5
>> > Gbps data rate to cause excessive errors.   Even the skew is minimized by
>> > deskew circuit, the waveform distortion by reflection will cause
excessive
>> > JITTER by altering the bit-timing information of each bit (bit-cell
timing
>> > near 300 ps), which provides the deskew circuit a wrong data.  This is
one
>> > of the reasons that high frequency transceiver and PLL are preferred
to be
>> > in one chip.
>>
>> I really think what this boils down to if you agree with the above
statement is
>> that you don't have a current understanding of circuit board geometry,
how it is
>> developed, and what kind of control can be used to over come these
issues in
>> 'the circuit board of today'. From my point of view, I can remove all
the issues
>> in this email through careful understanding of the pcb construction. ie,
Ed's
>> points are mostly true if you through the gerber over the wall and take
what the
>> board shop sends back.
>>
>> > Over 2.5 Gbps, and at 20" PC run length, the signal amplitude will be
>> > drastically reduced for each inch the signal travels to cause the
>> > destination data without sufficient Signal-to-Noise ratio -- inviting for
>> > excessive errors.  In addition, the rise time will be drastically
increased
>> > to add further jitter to cause wrong data into deskew circuit.
>> >
>> > The higher the data rate, the capacitive and inductive coupling noise are
>> > higher which are  linearly proportional to data rate, and the parallel
>> > length (20" parallel is excessive at 2.5 Gbps).  A ground plan between
two
>> > adjacent signals may reduce crosswalk but not necessarily eliminate it
-- no
>> > absolute assurance of eliminating the crosswalk effect.  Furthermore, the
>> > radiation issues will much tougher to resolve.
>> >
>> > The PC runs through the backplane have to go through connectors to create
>> > waveform distortion caused by impedance mis-match of connectors.  At
300 pc
>> > cell time, any glitch could be the sauce  of errors.
>> >
>> > Unfortunately, circuit problems are very difficult to debug, which
show up
>> > as excessive random  errors.  Some time, it takes over six months to find
>> > it, then there is no simple cure.
>>
>> Not sure about this .... all of the issues I have seen in high speed
>> differential resulting in the failures listed above have been the result
of poor
>> power design at the source and destination. The only high frequency
desing rules
>> I have followed are: modeling, good power design, test cards, good power
design,
>> trace and via geometry testing/verification, and good power design.
>>
>> > I further agree with Joel, that HARI will unnecessarily use up the most
>> > valuable area of a PC board; namely, high frequency area.  I also
agree that
>> > HARI will add more power consumption to what we are struggling to reduce.
>> > All of these are counter productive, unless HAIR is "MUST" for the
product.
>> > Perhaps, HARI can be an option feature.
>>
>> Not sure I agree with this, either.  I don't see the power consumption
being an
>> issue because I don't know what it is yet, but I have not seen what the
SiGe
>> technology is going to consume, either.  As far as the 'high frequency
area', I
>> stand by this statement -> The lower the speed between connection
points, the
>> less board fabrication design I have to develop.  So, I would rather
deal with a
>> few more longer pairs of 3.125 then one long run of 10 because the board
fab is
>> much easier to implement.  The cost for me will be the same, either way,
but one
>> is a lot less work.
>>
>> > The system architecture are flexible.  There are so many ways to
achieve the
>> > same result. I am not sure that to integrate all channels which are
>> > inherently distributed in one big chip is the most cost-effective way
to do
>> > it, considering all the potential problems.  I would think a modular
>> > approach with scalability may prove to be more cost-effective and more
>> > flexible to use from architecture point of view.
>> >
>> > I would hope some one will present test data to assure the performance,
>> > before we have to vote with some reservations.
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> >
>> > Ed Chang
>> > NetWorth Technologies, Inc.
>> > EChang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: owner-stds-802-3-hssg@xxxxxxxx
>> > [mailto:owner-stds-802-3-hssg@xxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Joel Goergen
>> > Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 8:59 AM
>> > To: HSSG
>> > Subject: HARI Systems Design
>> >
>> > Hello all and Happy Holidays.
>> >
>> > I am very perplexed about a few issues that really bother me.  First,
>> > and for most, the comment:  "Don't you think that this is either a
>> > little early, or does someone have a hidden agenda?"  from Roy's email
>> > this morning in one of the many HARI threads.  Unless I am mistaken, I
>> > have not viewed this, nor any proposal by anyone as a hidden agenda.  If
>> > you did call HARI a hidden agenda, then you could call two phys a hidden
>> > agenda, SONET a hidden agenda, etc, etc.  Correct me if I am wrong,
>> > people, but I thought all the presentations were from people who believe
>> > they have a good idea to offer to the standard, might benifit them a
>> > little, but still a good presentation - or have I just stayed on the
>> > farm a little too long?
>> >
>> > In terms of systems design, "As for real estate on the PC board.
>> > Vendors need to think about reducing the size
>> > of their boards and systems.  More and more floor space is being taken
>> > by these systems as well as power and cooling.  Reducing the size of the
>> > boards, reducing the amount of electronics, reducing power requirements,
>> > and increasing the density of the connections is becoming an issue in
>> > large installations, like those that will use P802.3ae.  Hari tends to
>> > take exactly the opposite direction in system design.  Hari makes it
>> > easy for the system designer to become sloppy, not requiring them to
>> > become tighter and better."  I think I would like to take this line by
>> > line.
>> >
>> > Vendors need to think about reducing the size of their boards and
>> > systems : Well, how about customers should require less features.  Then
>> > I wouldn't have to go to extraordinary means to get all the components
>> > shoved into a small bucket.  If you want less power, less space, less
>> > connections, then drop some features.
>> >
>> > Board Size:  We fit more onto boards today on a gate per sq in level
>> > then we ever have at a lower price.  We are beginning to abandon fr-4
>> > for newer materials at less cost per route length and more routing
>> > density.
>> >
>> > Thermal and power: Reducing voltages to 2.5v and 3.3v have helped.
>> > Power bricks are getting much more efficient.  Using CMOS over GaAs and
>> > Bipolar have helped.  We are all required to meet Telcordia
>> > requirements, so there is only so much heat per sq foot we are allowed
>> > to produce.  Space and thermal and weight ARE already a standard.
>> >
>> > Hari makes it easy for the system designer to become sloppy, not
>> > requiring them to become tighter and better: Wow!  Hari or something
>> > similar does no such thing.  It allows the designer the ability to
>> > re-partition the problem.  But, on the other hand, maybe I should be
>> > against Hari because then that would force most people to think about
>> > 10gig serial streams for long distances on copper traces ( which most
>> > companies can not aford to develop ) and go with very wide 622mhz data
>> > paths so my boards get thicker and more expensive - this allows the
>> > designer the greater headache of routing and board fab issues.  I don't
>> > know, if sloppy were true, all of us would be out of business.  I have
>> > seen most of the systems available today and we all pretty much design
>> > the same, have the same issues, and make the same trade-offs to supply
>> > the customer all the features they require to make the sale.
>> >
>> > So, in summary, Hari is a starting place, as I have mentioned before.
>> > Even the GMII and MII, etc have issues.  But we have a proposal(s) of a
>> > start .... how about we try to constructively look at what hari solves
>> > or doesn't solve.  So how do we design Hari to be 'phy independent'?
>> > Because at the moment, Hari solves most of my SI issues.  Oh yeah, the
>> > job description for the SI guy is as follows : Comes up with last minute
>> > desperate solutions to impossible problems caused by the System
>> > Architect.
>> >
>> > Joel
>>
>> --
>> Joel Goergen
>> Lucent Technologies
>> High Performance Networking Division
>> 10250 Valley View, Suite 113
>> Eden Prairie, MN, 55344
>>
>> Email:  goergen@xxxxxxxxxx     http://www.lucent.com
>> Phone:  (612) 943-8990              Cell:  (612) 670-5930
>> Direct: (612) 996-6932              Pager: (800) 200-0586
>> Fax:    (612) 996-6695
>