Tips and techniques for end-to-end 10Gb/s channel simulation

Commercial electromagnetic (EM) software combined with circuit and system simulation was applied to characterize transmission lines, vias and connectors for systems that incorporate high-speed serial transmission. Two-dimensional EM simulation was used to extract quasistatic circuit models for the PCB transmission lines; three-dimensional EM simulation was used to extract models for vias and connectors. Convolution was used for end-to-end simulations. It is shown that it is possible to achieve reliable data transmission with proper use of modern design tools.