An Approximate Transfer Function Model of Two Serially Connected Heterogeneous Transmission Lines

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems. II, Express briefs Vol. 64; no. 9; pp. 1067 - 1071
• Main Authors: Seo, Jaeyoung, Choi, Minsoo, Song, Sanquan, Sim, Jae-Yoon, Park, Hong-June, Kim, Byungsub
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.09.2017
• Subjects: Approximate transfer function; Computational modeling; heterogeneous transmission lines (TLs); Integrated circuit interconnections; Integrated circuit modeling; Mathematical model; modeling interconnects in high-speed ICs; Reflection; Transfer functions; transmission line theory; Transmitters
• ISSN: 1549-7747; 1558-3791
• DOI: 10.1109/TCSII.2017.2655140

This brief presents an approximate transfer function model of two heterogeneous transmission lines connected in series. The proposed model is simple, intuitive, and can accurately describe the frequency response of various serially connected heterogeneous interconnects which satisfy a validity condition. The exact error of the proposed model is also provided. According to our analysis, the validity condition can be clearly interpreted by the propagation and the reflection waves. The accuracy of the proposed model is verified by comparing the calculated transfer function of LC-dominant off-chip and RC-dominant on-chip examples against SPICE simulation results. In these verifications, the maximum errors between calculation and simulation are, respectively, 2.58% and 3.32% for off-chip and on-chip examples. The computation time is also reduced about 29.76 and 289.07 times compared with a single-channel model and the SPICE w-element model. With the proposed model, designers can easily understand the channel responses of diverse serially connected heterogeneous interconnects.