The impact of external RF energy on high-speed differential signal quality of long cables

As voltage levels decrease and data rates increase and the electromagnetic environment becomes more noisy for high-speed, differential, I/O data buses in data centers, the electromagnetic susceptibility of these data links increases. Signal integrity and EMC engineers need a way to quantify the risk of data errors given a certain level of external noise and an I/O cablepsilas characteristics. This paper proposes a methodology by which an engineer can calculate a transfer function that enables one to determine the differential noise signal created by an external field or conversely to determine the external field strength necessary to create a differential signal capable of causing data errors.