eeweb pulse - issue 36, 2012

8/2/2019 EEWeb Pulse - Issue 36, 2012

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PULSE

EEWeb.cIssue

March 6, 20

Dr. Jos FernndezVillaseorFreescale Semiconductor

Electrical Engineering Commun

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3/23EEWeb |Electrical Engineering Community Visit www.eeweb.com 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dr. Jos Fernndez Villaseor 4Freescale Semiconductor

Telemonitoring Solutions to Prevent 9Chronic Degenerative Disease

ComplicationsBY DR. JOS FERNNDEZ VILLASEOR

Featured Products 12Repeaters: Learn to Love emBY MICHAEL STEINBERGER WITH SISOFT

Would You...Could You...Should You... 20Compile Your FPGA Design on theCloud?BY PHIL SIMPSON WITH ALTERA

RTZ - Return to Zero Comic 22

How Telehealth Monitoring Systems help health care providers adequately monitor patientswith chronic degenerative illnesses.

Interview with Dr. Jos Fernndez Villaseor - Medical Product Manager

Michael Steinberger explains why digital repeaters will become present in every stationarysystem and demonstrates the type of analysis required for their design.

With Cloud storage technology becoming more omnipresent, Phil Simpson weighs the prosand cons of using the Cloud for your projects.

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INTERVIEW

Freescale SemiconductorHow did you get into electricalengineering and when didyou start?During high school, I loved all the

science classes such as physics,

math and biology. In my third year

of high school, I chose to focus

on physics and mathematics. The

advanced physics, electronics and

calculus classes were amazing

because they let me use my

imagination and create things.

At the same time, it was almost

like playing with the circuits and

applications.

After that, I decided to pursue a

career in electrical engineering.

Even though I enjoyed electronics, I

always wished there was a medical/

biology group available when I was

in high school.

Can you tell us about yourwork experience/historybefore becoming theMedical Product Manager atFreescale?Before joining Freescale, I worked

as a field application engineer

for an electronics design house

focused on health and automotive

applications. I also worked in a

clinic for Mexicos Health Ministry

where I provided preventative and

treatment medicine to high-risk,

low-income communities.

I did research on protocols for

renal and liver donors with the

transplantation unit and worked

with the internal medicine and

gastroenterology department at

a non-profit, public hospital in

Guadalajara.

For the last 13 years, Ive also taught

courses in electronics, medicine

Dr. Jos FernndezVillaseor

Dr. Jos Fernndez Villaseor - Medical Product Manager
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INTERVIEW

and surgery at various universities

in their electronics and biomedical

departments.

What have been some of yourinuences that have helpedyou get to where you aretoday?

While at the university, I earned

a scholarship to study Japanese

in Kyoto. This experience was a

crossroad in my life. I learned how

to improve my time management

skills, perfect and master my daily

work, and ultimately decide that I

had just enough time and energy to

push myself to the limit and pursuean additional career. When I was in

my fourth semester of electronics

engineering, I started my first

semester of medical school. The

universities were far apart, and my

days were longstarting at 5:00

a.m. and finishing around 1:00 a.m.

This discipline has continued to

motivate me today as a practicing

surgeon and as an electronics

engineer for Freescale.

Have you always beeninterested in practicingmedicine?

Yes. During my childhood, I visited

hospitals frequently and was thrilled

by the work the physicians did.

However, I always thought I had

a bad memory and at some point

I decided that medicine was not

for me. As it turned out, I was notas bad as I thought at memorizing

information.

What made you decide tostudy both electronics andmedicine?It was always in my mind. I enjoyed

both things, so why not study

both? Why not apply technology to

medicine to fully understand the

needs of both the market and the

user (patient)? This way, we can

offer better solutions and improve

the health of everyone.

Can you tell us more aboutaesthetic medicine?

Aesthetic medicine is focused

on improving the human bodys

aesthetics and helping in all anti-

aging medical treatments. Reasons

for this could be due to accidents,

and diseases such as vitiligo, acne,

or just because patients do not feel

comfortable with the way they look.

During my first year

at engineering school,

I kept blowing out the

capacitors. Electrolytic

capacitors had a figuresimilar to a 1 which

marked the leg that was

supposed to be connected

to the ground. I kept

saying to myself, This

must mean the digital 1

so it should go directly to

Vcc. Well, after seven or

eight capacitor explosions,

I found out it didnt!

What type of work do you dowith this area of study?Some of the medical and surgical

procedures we do are to correct

or improve these conditions. One

of the things I also focus on is

medical sport supplementation.

With that, my major objective is to

improve an athletes performance.

For this we learn how to detect and

correct muscular, neural and joint

imbalance.

What are your favoritehardware tools that you use?I really enjoy using the Freescale

Tower System development board,

which is a designers platform to

easily prototype and test home

portable medical equipment. The

best part about it is that you can just

plug in the boards you need, such

as the serial or LCD boards, and

you dont need a hardware design

at all. You just use them as stackable

boards.

What are your favoritesoftware tools that you use?CodeWarrior, Micrium RTOS,

Mathlab and IAR.

What is on your bookshelf?I like to read non-technical books

so that I can rest my mind from the

things that I read on a daily basis at

work. I am reading Pedro Paramo

by Juan Rulfo, a Mexican authors

short novel about death, and Genji no Monogatari from Murasaki

Shikibu, a Japanese lady from the

court, which is sometimes called

the worlds first novel.

But besides that, I really enjoy

writing. I have just recently co-

authored a book based on Micriums
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INTERVIEW

RTOS with specific applications for

medical devices. In this book, we

focus on home portable medical

devices, explain the basics of

physiology and how easy it is to

create a device using Freescales

microcontrollers and sensors.

I have also published some articles

in Germany, Korea, China, USA,

Japan and Brazil about how to use

technology and medical devices to

monitor and prevent complications

in chronic degenerative and cardiac

diseases. In this way, I focus on

what is needed from the patients

perspective to improve his or herquality of life, rather on what the

technology can do by itself.

I also participate in Freescales

blog Medical by design, where

we talk about how to solve real

medical problems like avoiding

acute complications of chronic

degenerative diseases, Parkinsons

disease, emerging technologies

and others. If you would like to know

more about this and others, takea look at the Medical by Design

blog from Freescale.

What has been your favoriteproject?One innovative project Ive been

involved with is an emotion sensing

application for consumer and

automotive applications .

In this project, we tried to capturehow emotions are created and

felt by humans. The emotions

and the way we react to certain

stimuli evoke a cascade of brain

reactions, mostly triggered by our

unconscious zones. This produces

specific neurotransmitters that are

released through the brain and the

bloodstream and produce specific

responses in our body. We can try

to fool ourselves by saying we dont

feel scared, but our body says the

contrary. Picture yourself jogging

when suddenly a dog attacks you;

your heart rate will increase, your

muscles will respond to move away,

your face will be pale so that all the

blood is available for you to run

away! In our reference design, we

use the most common responses

induced by hormones, such as

sweating, heart rate and muscle

contraction among other variables

to detect emotions in the user.

Imagine this concept being appliedto a steering wheel. It would be able

to detect a heart attack or fainting

and stop the car, park it and call 911!

Another one of my favorite projects is

the design of field effect transistors

for specific medical needs like

detecting biochemical compounds

that help provide early diagnosis of

a wide range of pathologies.

Do you have any note-worthyengineering experiences?I was awarded the Best Intern

Award during my last year at

medical school, and I graduated

with honors at my residency.

I have also been granted the

Microcontrollers Solutions Group

Excellence award for the research

and development and enablement

work for the medical market at

Freescale.

Do you have any experientialstories you would like toshare?During my first year at engineering

school, I kept blowing out the

capacitors. Electrolytic capacitors

had a figure similar to a 1 which

marked the leg that was supposed

to be connected to the ground. I

kept saying to myself, This must

mean the digital 1 so it should go

directly to Vcc. Well, after seven or

eight capacitor explosions, I found

out it didnt!

What are you currentlyworking on?My colleagues and I are working on

achieving the lowest power modes

for microcontrollers so that home

portable medical devices can run for

longer periods of time and monitor

the patient using battery operation.

This includes transistor-arrayspecifics for the medical market

such as powerful measurement

enginesso that medical sensors

can be easily instrumented.

As a Medical ProductManager at Freescale, whattype of work do you do?I participate in the market analysis,

product definition and conception

and launch of microcontrollerproducts, enablement tools design,

demos and reference designs,

as well as customer and product

support throughout the product life.

How does Freescale continueto be a global leader inembedded processingsolutions, advancing theautomotive, consumer,industrial and networkingmarkets?Freescale is a global leader in

the design and manufacturing of

embedded semiconductors for the

automotive, consumer, industrial

and networking markets. The

company is based in Austin, Texas,

and has design, research and
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INTERVIEW

development, manufacturing and

sales operations around the world.

In the medical market, Freescale

develops innovative embedded

technologies ranging frommicrocontrollers and sensors to

analog and wireless products that

help device manufacturers achieve

major advancements in next-

generation medical and healthcare

applications. These embedded

technologies are ideal for use in

health and wellness, home portable

diagnostics and therapy, and

medical imaging devices.

What direction do you seeyour business heading in thenext few years?Diagnostic and therapy devices

will need to become more portable

and easier to operate so people can

quickly detect any signs of disease

from their homes and diagnose

treatable diseases early before it is

too late. For this, we need to develop

security for data transmission

to health providers, establish

appropriate communication

protocols and improve low power/

low cost devices to be defined as

standards. This work has already

started, but a lot more needs to bedonenot only on the technology

side but also with regard to patient

education.

What are some of yourhobbies outside of work anddesign?I love animals and am a huge

supporter of animal shelters. I

have adopted five dogs that I

enjoy walking and taking on hiking

adventures. I love to cook and went

through master chef training for

two years at a culinary school. I like

experimenting with ingredients and

different styles of food, and I enjoy

having friends over to cook for

them.
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PROJECT

TelemonitoringSolutions to Prevent

Chronic Degenerative

Disease ComplicationsBy Dr. Jos Fernndez VillaseorAging Population and Chronic DegenerativeDiseasesThe average age of the American population is continually

increasing. Baby boomers are now becoming our senior

citizens, and with this, drastic changes in our health

system are necessary.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO),

non-communicable diseases account for nearly 50percent of the global burden of disease. Among them,

the most common are chronic degenerative diseases

such as cardiovascular diseasemore specifically

hypertension, which plagues roughly 600 million

peopleand metabolic diseases like diabetes, from

which roughly 90 million people suffer.

With so many people suffering from these diseases

worldwide, the ability of healthcare providers to

adequately monitor their patients has become a major

issue. Telehealth monitoring systems are providing the

solution.

Telehealth Monitoring Systems Help PreventAcute Complications of Chronic Degenerative

DiseasesTelehealth monitoring systems use telecommunications

to collect information regarding patients vital signs,

which is then relayed to a remote healthcare provider

for further analysis. The systems transmit data such as

a patients glucose level, heart rate and blood pressure.

They can also remind patients and healthcare providers

of the proper time to take or administer a medication.

The system can be customized to acquire different data

related to a patients respective treatment.

The ability of a healthcare provider to remotely monitor

a patient helps prevent acute complications relating to a

patients condition because the healthcare provider can

immediately receive data that helps track the evolution of

a disease or a post-operational treatment.

For efficiency purposes, these systems are mostly

developed for use by the patients themselves. They

guide the patients through the process of measuring vital

signs using a rich graphical user interface. This articleFigure 1: Telemonitoring System

Telehealth

AC Mains

or Battery

VoltageRegulation

USB PHY or RS232

xcvr or Enet PHYPC/Broadband orPOTS connection

Keypad

MCU/MPU

Speaker

RF Transceiver(WiFi, Zigbee, Bluetooth)

IR Interface

Display

MCU Optional Peripherals Analog Sensors
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PROJECT

provides an overview of how a custom-built, disease-

specific telehealth monitoring system is implemented

in a home environment using the Freescale Solution

Enablement Layer (SEL) for increased portability across

Freescales 32-bit architectures such as i.MX, Power

Architecture Technology and the ColdFire Family of

processors.

Freescale Solution Enablement LayerThe Freescale Solution Enablement Layer (SEL) is an

embedded software platform running with standard

operating systems such as Linux and uCLinux to provide

application framework capabilities and abstracted

hardware drivers (called Services). The SEL is designed

to support a compile and deploy model of software

reusability across a range of Freescale 32-bit processors.

The SEL Service is the primary abstraction mechanism

designed to allow the partitioning of applications into

software components that are hardware specific. By

writing services for specific hardware, the application

source code contains control and consistent behavior

without being tied to a specific processor. Moving from

one platform to another becomes as simple as partially

re-implementing the service for the new hardware

device. Moreover, services are RTOS agnostic and

can be shared by multiple applications. Services are

designed to be reusable between applications, andindeed, suites of services can be provided by Freescale

or by third parties to eliminate the redundant portions

of software solutions while still getting the most from

specific processor capabilities.

Application Frameworks and SEL Services Arethe Primary Elements of the Solution EnablementLayer (SEL) Technology.1. Application Frameworks: Define pre-validated

application frameworks that exist for rapid

prototyping and application development. Mostapplication frameworks are suites of C++ classes

designed to interact and define consistent application

behavior, look and feel, and often implement a rich

user interface.

2. SEL Services: A mechanism of application

partitioning is available for the express purpose

of partitioning software components from the

underlying hardware design such that applications

need to only be recompiled to migrate from one

platform (hardware and RTOS) to another.

Conceptually, the SEL is an extension of the operating

system running on the embedded processor that allowsanother level of application abstraction. SEL Services

are therefore sub-components of the application that are

not operating system specific, and can be shared.

SEL ServicesSEL Services are central components in a software

solutions implementation. As applications begin to

use the SEL, they can start by only abstracting a single

service for a particularly complex piece of hardware-

specific code, while leaving the rest of the application

directly calling the operating system. Over time, moreand more of the functionality can be divided into services

so that the application code becomes more and more

abstracted from the hardware without losing any of

the underlying hardware functionality. This process of

gradually converting to the SEL allows the conversion to

take place over the life of one or more projects.

SEL Services Properties Dynamically loaded at runtime

Interface is directly useable from within an

application or the command line Applications do not compile or link to services to use

them.

Insulate the application against both OS and HWdifferences.

Extended services may derive functionality based on

existing SEL services

Telehealth Monitoring System Services Working down from a software solution through a

hardware implementation in a telehealth monitoring

system, developers want to write application code that is

easy to migrate among hardware device implementations

and RTOS platforms. The Solution Enablement Layer

allows applications to be segmented to define graphical

user interfaces (GUIs) independent of SEL services:

Main control with personalized items for vital signson patient GUI

Blood pressure with symptoms for acute
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PROJECT

complications GUI

Glucometer with symptoms for acute complicationsand prevention of double intake of dosage GUI

Pulse oximeter for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary

Disease GUI

The applications are also allowed to define a service of

the application that is hardware or RTOS independent,

such that re-implementing part of the service allows the

user easy migration across the 32-bit Freescale portfolio:

Blood pressure Service (systolic, diastolic and meanarterial pressure)

Glucometer Service

Pulse Oximeter Service

Thermometer Service (infectious disease complica-tions)

Digital Weight Scale Service (for monitoring waterretention in patients with congestive heart failure)

Software partitioning a telemonitoring system

application might have multiple services running in a

high-end processor such as i.MX, Power Architecture

Technology or ColdFire Family, or the application

might be tailored to implement a couple of services in a

low-end processor.

Figure 2 depicts a comprehensive telemonitoring

system using several SEL medical services. This samesystem can be partioned to target other Freescale 32 bits

processors

ConclusionModern American society faces many public health

issues with the rapidly increasing average age of the

population and the pathology demographics. This means

that for people to age independently, it is important for

healthcare providers to be able to adequately monitor

vital signs and drug intake from a distance.

Taking this into account, Freescale offers advanced

hardware tools and a new software platform (Solution

Enablement Layer) to the community of medical

equipment designer and OEMs, which enables

concurrent software and hardware development for

hardware designers and developers to bring solutions

faster to market.

Reusing SEL services and spanning its usage across the

32-bit Freescale Portfolio enables the proper and rapid

development of health telemonitoring equipment by

creating a virtual bridge between doctor and patient.

Figure 2: Medical SEL SERVICE

Figure 3: Medical SEL SERVICES in a MCF5329

Blood Pressure GUI Glucometer GUI

Main GUI

Graphical User Interface

GUI Framework GUI Widgets

Application Framework

SEL - Interfaces

SEL Architecture

fsl_os_linux

mcf52277 mcf5329 mx31 mpc5121e mpc8360

SEL OS

Medical Services

Blood Pressure Glucometer

Oximeter

Thermometer Weight Scale

Blood Pressure GUI

Main GUI

Graphical User Interface

GUI Framework GUI Widgets

Application Framework

SEL - Interfaces

SEL Architecture

fsl_os_linux

mcf5329

SEL OS

Medical Services

Blood Pressure
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Michael SteinbergerLead Architect, Serial Channel Products

Repeaters:Learn to

Loveem

Eventually, any stationary

system youre working on will useelectrical repeaters. This article

explains why and demonstrates

the type of analysis thats required

when designing with repeaters.

1.0 The Need for Speed

Many years ago, a director at Bell

Labs told me that the cost of a

piece of equipment was roughly

proportional to its weight. We sell

equipment by the pound, he said.While that was a slight exaggeration,

he had a point. Printed circuit boards,

power supplies, connectors, and

sheet metal represent a significant

percentage of the total cost of any

shelf or rack of equipment.

Some years later, I had an

opportunity to explore this principle

in detail. I was the circuits manager working with the manager of the

mechanical design group, helping

to choose the technology for a very

high-performance system. Instead

of trying to reduce the cost of the

system at a fixed performance

level, we decided to evaluate the

cost and performance for each

possible set of technology choices.

Because the performance of the

system was known to be directlyproportional to the bandwidth of

the interconnect, my group was

responsible for estimating the

maximum achievable data rate,

and therefore the performance. My

partners group was responsible

for estimating the cost. We put

all our data into a sophisticated

spreadsheet that plotted a scatter

graph of the performance versusthe cost for each one of the ten

thousand possible technology

choice combinations.

Our study demonstrated that the

highest performance-to-cost ratio

was consistently achieved by the

technology combinations that used

electrical repeaters to support

a higher data rate in the system

interconnect.

I have since lost access to that data,

and so can no longer estimate cost

accurately. Nonetheless, Figure 1

gives some sense of what those

results looked like.

Figure 1 assumes an equipment

shelf containing sixteen line
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TECHNICAL ARTICLE

cards and two switch cards. The

technology choices were as follows:

1. The material for the line card,

switch card and backplane

could be either FR4 or a lower

loss material. The material was chosen independently for

each of the three printed circuit

boards.

2. There could either be no

electrical repeaters in the

system, repeaters on the line

cards only, or repeaters on both

the line cards and switch cards.

The capacity of the processing

ICs for the line and switchcards was held constant for all

configurations. It was assumed

that the capacity of the processing

ICs was high enough, and that it

was practical to populate the cards

with enough ICs to consume the

maximum interconnect bandwidth.

If this assumption isnt valid, then

repeaters arent required in the first

place.

Figure 1 shows that the most cost

effective configurations are the

ones that use repeaters on both

the line and switch cardsin other words, the configurations that can

support the highest data rate. Most

studies of this type reach a similar

conclusion.

In other words, the most cost

effective system designs are the

ones which achieve a high enough

interconnect bandwidth to pack as

much processing power as possible

onto a printed circuit board. Ifthe highest processing density

requires electrical repeaters in the

interconnect, then repeaters are

going to be an indispensable part

of the optimal solution.

Note that the above conclusion

applies primarily to high-capacity

stationary systems such as core

data routers and high-performance

computers. The power limitations

in portable devices typically reduce

the processing power to such an

extent that interconnect bandwidth

is not a limiting factor.2.0 Rules of the Road

Its tempting to analyze a channel

with electrical repeaters by

breaking it into individual segments

and analyzing those segments

independently. Unfortunately,

this approach cannot be relied

upon to produce accurate results.

Analyzing the entire channel in

a single analysis is much more

reliable, and there are products

out there such as SiSofts Quantum

Channel Designer which are able

to perform such analyses.

There are several effects that need

to be considered:

1. Many repeaters are either linear

Figure 1: Capacity vs. relative cost for a hypothetical shelf of equipment

Cost vs. Capacity

Cost(zorkmids)

Data Rate (Gb/s)

20000

18000

16000

14000

12000

10000

8000

6000

4000

2000

0

No repeaters

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

Good

Bad

One repeater Two repeaters
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TECHNICAL ARTICLE

or quasi-linear. That is, they

do not recover the clock and

regenerate the data. The effect

of such repeaters is cumulative

across the entire channel and

is not isolated to any individual

segment of the channel.

2. If the repeater is nonlinear, then

the placement of the repeater in

the channel has an additional

constraint in that placing

the repeater too close to the

transmitter could reduce the

effectiveness of the repeater.

3. If the repeater has clock

recovery and data detection,

then the individual segments

of the channel are more

nearly independent. That may

or may not be a good thing

depending on the placement

of the repeater. Furthermore,

the recovered clock from the

repeater becomes the clock

that the receiver must track.

The resulting increase in

clock phase noise should beaccounted for in the analysis.

The following sections briefly

illustrate each of these effects.

2.1 Linear Repeater

Figure 2 is a schematic for a

simplified channel with repeater.

In Figure 2, the length of

transmission line from the

transmitter to the repeater andfrom the repeater to the receiver

are variable. To make observations

about repeater placement clearer,

the sum of the transmission line

lengths was constrained to be a

constant 100. Observations were

made at the output of the repeater

and at the decision point of the

receiver. Both the transmitter and

the repeater output driver had 3dB

of precursor deemphasis, both

the repeater input and receiver

input had a continuous time linear

equalizer (CTLE) and the receiverhad five taps of decision feedback

equalization (DFE). The data rate

was 5 Gb/s.

Figure 3 shows eye diagrams at the

input to the repeater driver and at

the receiver decision point for three

different repeater locations: 10,

50, and 90 from the transmitter.

As shown in Figure 3, even though

the eye diagram at the input to the

repeater driver varies considerably

as a function of repeater location,the eye diagram at the receiver

remains almost constant. This is

consistent with the assumption that

the repeater is linear.

There is a slight variation of the

eye diagram at the receiver due to

changes in reflected waves between

the repeater, the transmitter driver,

Figure 2: Simplified channel with repeater

Figure 3: Repeater and receiver eye diagrams for three different repeater locations

TX1sisoft_serdesSiSoft_AMI_Tx

RP2sisoft_serdesSiSoft_AMI_Repea...

RX1sisoft_serdesSiSoft_AMI_RxW1

*_1_diff_strip_w...$len1

W2*_2_diff_strip_w...$len2

A A AI II I

Receiver decision pointInput to repeater driver

Input to repeater driver Receiver decision point

Repeater location = 10


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TECHNICAL ARTICLE

and the receiver buffer amplifier.

However, these variations are

relatively small and therefore

difficult to see in Figure 3.

Notethat,asdemonstratedinFigure3, the eye diagram at the output of the

repeater is no indication whatsoever

of the performance of the end-to-

end channel. The eye diagrams at

the output of the repeater are very

different, and yet the end-to-end

channel performance is almost

identical in all three cases.

For later comparison, Figure 4

shows the eye height for a 10-12

BER at the input to the repeater

driver and the receiver decision

point, each as a function of repeater

location.

2.2 Nonlinear Repeater

In general, repeaters are not

perfectly linear; and in many

applications, the non-linearity of

the repeater is significant. One of

the primary functions of a repeater

is to insert gain into the channel;a number of repeater designs

achieve this by providing a high

gain saturating amplifier.

The analysis of this type of systemis perhaps the most complex. The

repeater is not linear, so cascading

transfer functions is not valid. Yet

the repeater does not recover the

clock and regenerate the data, so

the channel cannot be broken into

independent segments.

The most reliable way to analyze a

channel with nonlinear repeaters is

a time domain simulation. However,

as demonstrated in [1], timedomain simulations cannot produce

a statistically significant sample

of the data waveform. There are

approximate methods in statistical

analysis and statistical extrapolation

that can produce relatively accurate

results; however, those methods are

beyond the scope of this article.

As a demonstration of the practical

considerations associated with the

application of nonlinear repeaters,

Figure 5 shows the eye height

versus the repeater location for

a nonlinear repeater in the same

way that Figure 4 does for a linear

repeater.

In particular, Figure 5 demonstratesthat if the repeater is placed too

close to the transmitter, then the

saturation of the repeater will

severely degrade performance.

2.3 Retiming Repeater

As mentioned above, there are

also repeaters that include clock

recovery and data detection. These

are often called retimers, or in

telecommunications transmissionsystems theyre often called

regenerators.

While a channel with retimers can

be analyzed as the concatenation

of independent segments, there

are practical considerations and

cumulative effects which should be

understood.

Figure 6 is analogous to Figure 4 and

Figure 5 in that it shows eye heightas a function of repeater location. In

this case, however, the eye height

at the input to the repeater driver is

particularly important in that for a

retimer, it is the node where the data

is detected.

Note in Figure 6 that for repeater

locations beyond 60, the data

detection in the repeater fails,

causing failure of the entire channel.

Even though the receiver has morethan enough equalization capacity

for the failing repeater locations,

that excess capacity cannot be

used to improve performance

because it occurs after the bit errors

have already been made. Figure 6

also shows that with a retimer, the

channel length could be extendedFigure 4: Eye height as a function of repeater location

Repeater Location (inches)

EyeH

eight(V)

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

Repeater

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Receiver
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TECHNICAL ARTICLE

to a total of at least 13060 from

the transmitter to the retimer and

70 from the retimer to the receiver.

When using retimers, clock phase

noise also becomes a morecomplex phenomenon. Rather than

recovering the transmitter clock, the

receiver recovers the clock from the

retimer, which in turn recovers the

transmitter clock. Thus, there are

two clock recovery loops in series.

There is an advantage in that any

clock phase noise at the transmitter

gets filtered twice, and so its effect

at the receiver is considerably

reduced. The disadvantage is thateach clock recovery loop introduces

pattern dependent jitter.

Figure 7 shows the clock phase

noise spectral density produced

in a simulation in which a specific

phase noise spectrum was injected

into the transmitter and then the

receive phase noise spectrum

was measured with and without a

retimer in the channel. In Figure 7,

the transmit spectrum is shown ingreen, the spectrum without retimer

is shown in grey, and the spectrum

with retimer is shown in light green.

The transmit phase noise spectrum

in Figure 7 was generated to

demonstrate a behavior and does

not attempt to represent any real

system. In particular, the spectral

components in the transmit

spectrum are used to make it easy

to distinguish between transmit

phase noise and pattern dependent

jitter. When the retimer is disabled,

the transmit spectral components

are still readily visible in the receiver

clock spectrum. However, when the

retimer is enabled, then the transmit

spectral components are no longer

visible. The trade-off, however,

Figure 5: Eye height vs. repeater location for a nonlinear repeater

Figure 6: Eye height vs. repeater location for a retimer

Figure 7: Clock phase noise spectra with and without retimer

Repeater Location (inches)

EyeHeight(V

)

0.4

0.35

0.3

0.25

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0.0

Repeater

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Receiver

Satisfactory

Design Region

Retimer Location (inches)

EyeHeight(V)

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

Retimer

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Receiver

Satisfactory

Design Region

Transmitted spectral components

filtered out by retimer

Increased pattern

dependent jitter with retimer

Transfer FunctionTransmitted and Received Jitter Spectra

DB

Hertz (MHz)

Retiming Enabled

0

-90.0

-100.0

-110.0

-120.0

20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0 120.0

Retiming Disabled Transmit Injected Jitter
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TECHNICAL ARTICLE

is that there is increased pattern

dependent jitter when the retimer is

enabled.

3.0 Conclusion

For high performance stationary

systems, electrical repeaters

are eventually going to become

necessary to achieve a competitive

performance-to-cost ratio.

Designing with repeaters has its

own set of considerations which at

first may not be intuitively obvious.

When incorporating electrical

repeaters into the system design,

the performance analysis must

consider the entire channel, end toend.

4.0 References

[1] Mike Steinberger, Accuracy of

the Computational Experiments

called Time Domain Simulations,

EEWeb, http://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/

accuracy-of-the-computational-

experiments-called-time-domain-

simulations, July 4, 2011.

About the Author

Michael Steinberger, Ph.D., is

responsible for leading SiSofts

ongoing tool development effort

for the design and analysis of

serial links in the 5-30 Gbpsrange. Dr. Steinberger has over

30 years experience in the design

and analysis of very high speed

electronic circuits. Dr. Steinberger

began his career at Hughes Aircraft

designing microwave circuits. He

then moved to Bell Labs, where

he designed microwave systems

that helped AT&T move from

analog to digital long-distance

transmission. He was instrumental

in the development of high speed

digital backplanes used throughout

Lucents transmission product

line. Prior to joining SiSoft, Dr.

Steinberger led a group of over

20 design engineers at Cray Inc.

responsible for SerDes design,

high speed channel analysis, PCBdesign and custom RAM design.
http://www.sisoft.com/products/quantum-channel-designer/repeater-modeling.html?gclid=eewebhttp://www.sisoft.com/products/quantum-channel-designer/repeater-modeling.html?gclid=eewebhttp://www.sisoft.com/products/quantum-channel-designer/repeater-modeling.html?gclid=eewebhttp://www.sisoft.com/products/quantum-channel-designer/repeater-modeling.html?gclid=eewebhttp://www.sisoft.com/products/quantum-channel-designer/repeater-modeling.html?gclid=eewebhttp://www.sisoft.com/products/quantum-channel-designer/repeater-modeling.html?gclid=eewebhttp://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/accuracy-of-the-computational-experiments-called-time-domain-simulationshttp://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/accuracy-of-the-computational-experiments-called-time-domain-simulationshttp://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/accuracy-of-the-computational-experiments-called-time-domain-simulationshttp://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/accuracy-of-the-computational-experiments-called-time-domain-simulationshttp://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/accuracy-of-the-computational-experiments-called-time-domain-simulationshttp://www.sisoft.com/products/quantum-channel-designer/repeater-modeling.html?gclid=eewebhttp://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/accuracy-of-the-computational-experiments-called-time-domain-simulationshttp://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/accuracy-of-the-computational-experiments-called-time-domain-simulationshttp://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/accuracy-of-the-computational-experiments-called-time-domain-simulationshttp://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/accuracy-of-the-computational-experiments-called-time-domain-simulationshttp://www.eeweb.com/blog/michael_steinberger/accuracy-of-the-computational-experiments-called-time-domain-simulations



Phil SimpsonSr. Manager, SW Product Planning

Would you...Could you...Should you...

Compile your FPGAdesign on the Cloud?

What if FPGA vendors offered access to

their software via Cloud?

If you are the end user of FPGA Design Software, a Cloud

Computing model would provide you with elasticity and

flexibility. You would have access to more computer

power when needed; the availability of compute servers

would become on-demand. You could select your server

size from small (2 Virtual Core and 7.5GB RAM) to large

(8 Virtual Cores and 70GB RAM), upload your design

and scripts to your dedicated workspace and go. There

is the potential to check the compile status, compilation

reports and launch compiles from your smartphone or

tablet.

Many companies have their own compute farms and may

not see the need for a Cloud solution. However, when it

is crunch time on the project and you need to compile

multiple variations of your design to reach timing closure,

extra compute resources are appealing. Imagine running

the equivalent of the Altera Design Space Explorer on

the Cloud. You could compile multiple design or setting

iterations in parallel, reducing the closure timing (e.g.,

for a four-hour compile time), compiling 10 variations or

seeds in 4 hours as opposed to 40 hours. A Cloud solution could also offer convenience. It

provides the convenience of avoiding those long software

download and installation times. It would provide an easy

way to evaluate new releases of the software without

having to commit to the long installation process. It could

also reduce your Information Technology (IT) costs in

adding new hardware to your network and maintaining

it.

Security is interesting. There are many Web-based

software packages and services available on the Cloudtoday. Most offerings use the Amazon Elastic Compute

Cloud (EC2) and use SSH with private keys for access.

For most of our everyday tasks we use the

Cloud, and never think to question

the security as we

provide credit

c a r d



TECHNICAL ARTICLE

information and other personal details; but will a

company trust the upload of its IP to the Cloud? In

addition to the SSH with private key access, the issue

of IP security can be addressed via the deployment of

the encryption technology that the FPGA vendors use on

their own IPs. While certain business segments will not

be satisfied with this solution, others may.

This also opens the door to different business models for

the FPGA design software. One option could be the pay-

as-you-go model (i.e., only pay for licenses when they

are being used). Or alternatively, you use your existing

licenses and pay for the compute power. FPGA vendor

software is significantly less expensive than traditional

EDA software, thus the business model would likely

differ from the model that the EDA industry will inevitably

adopt.

So, why have the FPGA vendors not provided Cloud

access? GUI response due to network bandwidth could

be an issue and require GUI redesign. However, scriptbased compiles, which most designers are using today,

would work perfectly. The real reason is more business

uncertainty rather than technical reasons. Would you use

it? If you would use it, what price are you willing to pay

for this capability?

About the Author

Phil Simpson is Alteras senior manager for software

technical marketing, product planning, and EDA

relationships. In this role, he is responsible for Alteras

Quartus II software and third-party EDA interfacesproduct planning and the creation of the Altera design

flow software roadmap. Prior to joining Altera in 1997,

Phil held several engineering roles at various EDA and

semiconductor companies, including EDA Solutions,

Data I/O, and Graseby Microsystems. He holds a B.S.

(with honors) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from

City University, London and an M.S.C. (with distinction)

in system design from the University of Central England,

Birmingham, England. Phil is a published book author

on team-based FPGA design. In addition he has written

and had published numerous technical articles on topicsrelated to his experience.

Figure 1: Potential Cloud Set-up

Compile Node Servers

Master Web App

Get your results anywhere



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