EDI CON Online

Title: PAM-Fried Engineer’s Guide to Crosstalk, ISI, FEC, Equalization

Date: October 20, 2020

Time: 9:30am PT / 12:30pm ET

Presented by: Ransom Stephens, Signal Integrity Sage, Ransom's Notes

Abstract:
In this talk, we’ll see how crosstalk, ISI (inter-symbol interference), FEC (forward error correction), and equalization have driven high speed IO away from NRZ (which should be PAM2--2-level pulse amplitude modulation) to the madness of PAM4, PAM5, PAM6, PAM-fried engineers. Along the way, we’ll investigate how simple, righteous design constraints have evolved to arbitrarily complicated figures of merit like malicious COM (channel operating margin) and evil ERL (effective return loss) by standards committees intent on world domination. It’s a sad tale, guaranteed to keep engineers employed. 

Presenter Bio:

Ransom Stephens, Ph.D., helps engineers advance to the highest data rates by teaching the concepts engineers need to design better systems, better serdes, and better ways to find problems and come up with solutions. Ransom started in basic research at labs in the US and Europe specializing in digging weak signals out of strong backgrounds. Since 2005, when he started Ransom’s Notes, his seminars have helped thousands of EEs understand key nuances of their work. He is also an accomplished book author, publishing the novels The God Patent and The Sensory Deception as well as nonfiction popular science, The Left Brain Speaks the Right Brain Laughs. Ransom holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California.

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