Peak distortion analysis of nonlinear links

This paper introduces statistical analysis of high-speed nonlinear links by extending the peak distortion analysis to include the impact of nonlinear drivers. By taking advantage of the unique characteristics of interconnect networks, the multilinear theory is applied to calculate the responses of the nonlinear networks by analyzing a series of linear networks. First, the Volterra functional series is used to decompose the nonlinear link into multiple linear networks. Then, the peak distortion analysis of the high-speed nonlinear link is constructed from the linear combinations of sequences of peak distortion analyses of the decomposed linear networks. The analysis steps are derived analytically using an illustrative example. Finally, the accuracy of the method is verified for a high-speed memory link using time-domain simulation.