Abstract:
Historically, signal integrity (SI) modeling and
analysis was performed standalone without considering nonelectrical aspects of the design. Going forward, this approach
may not be viable to model high-speed serial links. Increased
demand for higher CPU core count is resulting in higher
wattage CPUs. This in-turn is increasing the number of phases
of voltage regulator module (VRM) driving higher thermal
footprint for the design. Increase in temperature impacts highspeed interconnect performance adversely. Modeling
interconnects for worst-case operating temperature can be
unrealistic and could lead to over-design of a channel. In this
paper, a Multiphysics approach is proposed to model next
generation high-speed interconnects. Computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) is used to determine the temperature gradient
in the channel and thermo-electrical co-analysis is proposed to
accurately predict the interconnect signal integrity (SI)
characteristics. A realistic test case is used to demonstrate the
importance of proposed Multiphysics co-analysis for different
data rates.
