Understanding and Optimizing Equalizers (EQ) in PCI Express HD

Complex systems require increasingly sophisticated means of channel loss compensation to support data link stability. The PCI Express® (PCIe®) standard defines several equalizers for this purpose. With the upcoming PCIe 6.0 specification supporting 64 GT/s (up to 256 GB/s via x16 configuration), effective use of equalizers becomes even more critical to successful system design. This session will help engineers understand the fundamentals of how equalizers (EQ) work, different types of EQ including continuous time linear equalizers (CTLE) and decision feedback equalizers (DFE), how EQ are defined in the PCIe specification, and how PCIe link training works to optimize EQ settings 0:0 Intro 4:38 Agenda 6:30 Signal Integrity Overview 9:00 Essential Signal Integrity Analyses in Measurement 11:56 Mixed mode S-parameters for Differential Channels 14:13 Important Mixed-mode S-parameters 21:43 Challenges in the Latest PCI Express 24:17 Equalization Techniques for PCI Express Link 26:30 Feed-Forward Equalizer 27:56 Continuous Time Linear Equalizer 28:18 Decision Feedback Equalizer 32:14 Dynamic Equalization 34:28 PCIe Gen4 Equalization Case Study 55:32 Case Study Summary 56:00 Q & A