A novel spatially configurable differential interface for an electronic system prototyping platform

Perspective Chapter: Chip I/O Design Fundamentals, Methodologies and Challenges

“…Therefore, in this work, the eye jitter must be smaller than 0.30 UI to provide sufficient time to fulfill setup and hold constraint of far-end receiver. Moreover, the maximum height of differential eye must be larger than 200 mV to ensure that the voltage levels meet input high and low limit requirements of the receiver [9]. It is reasonable to restrict the differential eye height and jitter specification as this allows the use of a relatively simpler and more power efficient receiver at far-end.…”

“…Fixed type of output drivers introduced in previous sub-sections might not be suitable in some circumstances as their advantages cannot be completely utilized to maximize the system performance. A fixed I/O driver is a compromise of various applications when it is used in multiple applications as the fixed features of that I/O driver cannot fit in various applications [9]. Besides, system upgrade that touches upon different signaling types and data rates has established design challenges on I/O drivers.…”

“…Unfortunately, the performance improvements in the microprocessors has not lead to comparable improvement in the performance of computer and computing systems [8], which is primarily due to the chip I/Os [3]. This is because microprocessor and application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) vendors provide I/O modules with fixed output driver circuits that are designed to compromise/adapt to various system applications [9]. Each ASIC vendor has a different cost-performance-risk-schedule tradeoff for the combination of application, chip supplier, chip assembler, substrate fabricator, module assembler and end user [10].…”

“…Tradeoffs have been made between electronic signaling and operating frequency to ensure that the computer system can function. However, the system performance is not at best optimized due to the compromise of speed between I/O modules and processor [9]. Thus, configurable input/output (I/O) driver is desired whereby different I/O driver types can be configured from the I/O driver to support multiple signaling types without compromising system performance across a variety of applications [25].…”