Precision labs series: Signal conditioning

High speed, multi-gigabit products are all around us. They can be found in the form of TV, Blu-ray players, notebooks, tablets, hard drives, car video infotainment systems, etc.A high-speed serial link with its multi-gigabit signals suffers from signal distortion as the data rate increases. The signal distortion comes from the PCB and packages dielectric losses, impedance discontinuities due to vias, connectors, and packages.Signal conditioners, such as redrivers, retimers and active switches, are ideal performance enhancement techniques to overcome the distortion improving the signal quality for multi-gigabit signals and increase the total channel reach.This signal conditioning training series will focus on the high speed serial design challenges, various electrical measurement techniques to identify and quantify these challenges, and choose the optimal signal conditioners to solve these challenges.