Previously, engineers were faced with high-cost alternatives or had to design and customize their own ISI solutions. The new BERTScope ISI Board is composed of nine differential pairs of traces of varying lengths. Choices of pairs with length from 2.42 inches to 40 inches allow the engineer to generate inter symbol interference for compliance testing to standards and emulate performance of back plane connections while overcoming the limitations of matched coaxial cable pairs when testing differential signals. The differential pair has been designed as a pair of striplines located in the same layer of the circuit board stack in order to track the mechanical performance of each other and become a reliable and transferable standard for engineers to compare the performance of devices at multiple manufacturer sites.
The BERTScope ISI Board can be used both single-ended and differentially to complement the Duty Cycle Distortion (DCD) of the BERTScope in generating high frequency deterministic jitter. It is also easy to configure several trace lengths in series to get even more alternatives, or tailor one for an exact effect.
“Our customers have been asking for an easy and standardized way of introducing ISI into stress testing, and at a reasonable cost, so we are pleased to offer this solution,” said Bent Hessen-Schmidt, Vice President, Business Development at SyntheSys Research, Inc. “We believe this new differential ISI board, with its flexibility and portability, will allow engineers to use it in multiple test setups and other specific signal integrity compliance applications requiring channel generated ISI.”
The BERTScope ISI Board is compatible with existing BERTs and scope equipment to leverage your existing investments.
About BERTScope
BERTScopeTM is a trademark of SyntheSys Research, Inc., a privately held California corporation. Founded in 1989, its mission to develop advanced test instruments for identifying and locating the source of errors in high-speed digital bit streams. BERTScope CR pairs with BERTScope to offer the vision of a scope, the confidence of a BERT, and clock recovery you can count on. More information is available at www.bertscope.com.