Vitesse has been at the forefront of high-performance crosspoint and signal integrity development for nearly ten years. Featuring 11 Gbps-per-port and 2- through 144-sized matrix selection, Vitesse’s crosspoint portfolio offers the highest port capacity, broadest offering and best signal integrity performance in the business. Vitesse’s integrated EQ Technology™ Technology improves signal performance and reduces jitter associated with driving multi-Gigabit signals across PCBs, backplanes, and cables. Vitesse components are used in a wide array of products from industry-leading OEMs.

Asynchronous Solutions

Asynchronous switches and equalizers emphasize speed and simplicity, making them an ideal choice for a wide range of applications. The propagation delay through these circuits is very low (<1 ns), meaning almost no impact on overall system latency. The asynchronous signal path means no jitter is added by on-chip PLLs, so the random jitter budget of the link is not impacted. Operating bandwidth down to DC means these devices have no pattern restrictions and no special provisioning for data rate.

CDR-based Solutions

Crosstalk and random jitter may require a more comprehensive approach to maintain signal integrity. In designs with poor isolation, coupling from adjacent signals adds jitter that is uncorrelated to recovering the signal. In many optoelectronic systems, such as parallel optical ribbons, the optical to electrical conversions add random noise that is independent of the data content of the signal. Removing this type of jitter requires that the signal be re-sampled using a recovered clock from an internal CDR. By integrating on chip the SerDes, CDR, and equalization (EQ) technologies, Vitesse provides system designers with a simple, comprehensive IC solution needed to build communication platforms with robust performance.

Enhancing Signals & Speeds over Copper Cabling

Moving signals greater than 1 Gbps had previously been the domain of premium cables. However, with proper equalization, the capability of cables originally intended for sub-Gbps rates can be extended up to 11 Gbps at a fraction of the cost of premium cable or fiber.

Cleaning Signals over PCB Traces

The push to lower cost leads to thinner traces on inexpensive FR4 materials. The result is significant signal losses for even short traces on the order of 10 inches or less. Moving a 10 Gbps signal more than a handful of inches will require some level of equalization to manage the signal losses.

Upgrading Protocols and Speeds over Existing Backplanes

As data rates grow beyond 3 Gbps, discontinuities from connectors and vias become more significant, requiring more aggressive equalization to compensate for the high-frequency signal losses. Using Vitesse EQ & Crosspoint solutions offers an economical tool to reach 5-11Gbps speeds avoiding the costs & complexities of a new backplane design.

More information on Vitesse’s Signal Integrity solutions can be found at www.vitesse.com/SI.