Fast channel performance evaluation using time domain metrics

High speed interconnects operating at multi-Gbps or even higher have been widely used in computer systems. The link simulation methodology is getting more and more complicated and it is often a challenging task to evaluate the full link signal integrity performance. Meanwhile, understanding the impact of each link component to the full link performance is complicated and time-consuming, but critical to a successful and cost-effective design. In this paper, we demonstrate an automated fast and efficient link decomposition procedure, using simple time domain metrics, to evaluate the impact of each component on full link performance. Application examples are provided to quantify importance of each component on full link performance, as well as provide directions for link optimization, crosstalk mitigation, etc.