A Simple Simulation Approach for the Estimation of Convergence and Performance of Fully Adaptive Equalization in High-Speed Serial Interfaces

We propose a simple approach to simulate the convergence and the performance of high-speed serial interfaces with adaptive equalization. Such a method uses as input the pulse response of the channel (printed circuit board and cables, plus package/socket) that is then modified by adaptive techniques implementing feed-forward, decision-feedback, and linear-continuous time equalization. Probabilistic considerations are used in this novel method to estimate the evolution during time of the LMS loop and the resulting evolution of the eye diagram. Sample results are reported for a realistic link operating at 20 Gb/s.