High speed serial links characterization for ATCA backplanes

Nowadays the design of the high speed telecommunication platforms depends on the high speed serial data transmission on the corresponding backplanes. Consequently the backplane design is very challenging and requires the use of design tools allowing both time and frequency domain analysis and simulations. Unfortunately it is very difficult to find time in the project´s flow to optinmize the design using this approach, because it´s time consuming and requires significant efforts for setting the correct simulation environment. The only possibility for the designer is to use its own experience supported by specific and very simple software tools oriented at the analysis of the signal link path, which don´t require complex models.