Constant Current Power Transmission Line-Based Power Delivery Network for Single-Ended Signaling

The performance of a system depends heavily on the communication speed between integrated circuits. One of the most important bottlenecks that limit the communication speed is simultaneous switching noise (SSN). A major contribution to SSN is return path discontinuities, which are caused by the change or disruption in return currents due to via transitions, aperture effects, etc. In this paper, a new concept based on power transmission line (PTL) is proposed to supply power, improve signal and power integrity, and enhance chip-to-chip communication speed. The first demonstration of constant current PTL (CCPTL)-based single-ended signaling scheme is implemented and measured. The results show that the CCPTL scheme improves the quality of the received signal in terms of voltage and timing margin.