Substrate Design Optimization for High Speed Links

I. Abstract New signaling techniques pose new packaging design challenges. As simultaneous bidirectional (SiBiDi) signaling offers the ability to double the throughput of a link by sending data both ways at the same time, it brings new design requirements and packaging tradeoffs to achieve reliable data transmission. This paper investigates the electrical design challenges encountered in the design, modeling, simulation and analysis of such high-speed sub-system. The importance of properly designing the substrate for these applications is discussed including identification of key design parameters. The design tradeoffs are discussed for various power/signal plane design techniques, for interconnect material alternatives, and for other substrate design techniques such as mesh density. A novel modeling and simulation technique is discussed, as well as laboratory measurements contrasting the hardware to modeling correlation results.