Date: 04/02/2009

A million-bit-per-minute channel simulator for signal integrity

Agilent Technologies has introduced a million-bit-per-minute signal integrity channel simulator for multi-gigabit chip-to-chip data link design. The channel simulator -- part of Agilent's Advanced Design System (ADS) EDA software platform - allows an interactive eye measurement from channel simulations inside the ADS signal integrity design and analysis environment.

The most common applications for the ADS Channel Simulator are design and verification of chip-to-chip multi-gigabit/s serial links. These are found in almost all consumer and enterprise digital products produced today -- from laptop computers to data center servers to telecommunication switching centers to Internet routers. At the very high data rates at which these links operate, signal-integrity engineers must take into account physical phenomena such as impedance mismatch, reflections, electromagnetic coupling, crosstalk and microwave frequency attenuation due to the skin effect and dielectric loss tangent.

The ADS Channel Simulator allows signal integrity engineers to address these challenges by performing "what-if" design space exploration. To aid this workflow, ADS Channel Simulator uses impulse response analysis to automatically extract a fast, linear FIR model from any combination of ADS circuit-level and physical-level components. This results in simulation throughputs of more than a million bits per minute. Fast eye measurement lets signal-integrity engineers interactively produce the resulting eye measurements -- and optimize transmit and receive equalization -- in serial links such as PCI Express(r), USB 3.0 and 10-gigabit Ethernet.

Agilent EEsof EDA is a provider of RF-mixed signal circuit and system-design software.

U.S. Pricing: Prices start at approximately $26,000.