Understanding and Optimizing Equalizers (EQ) in PCI Express

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