Annual Symposium
18th Central PA Signal Integrity Symposium on Signal and Power Integrity
March 28, 2025
Plenary Speaker 3, Capital Union Building (CUB)
“Black Art” Elements of Extreme Signal Integrity
Al Neves, CTO Wild Rivers Technologies
Abstract
The signal integrity crisis in the 1990s was a major challenge in the electronics and telecommunications industries, specifically related to the design of high-speed digital circuits and systems. As electronic devices, particularly computers, began operating at higher frequencies and with more complex circuits, engineers faced significant problems with signal integrity (SI). This raised awareness around SI, which was further fueled by Howard Johnson and Martin Graham’s book on the topic, notably subtitled “A Handbook of Black Magic”. Since then, we’ve faced increasingly complex challenges, unimaginable at the book’s publication time. However, significant progress has been made in Electronics Design (EDA), including methodologies, understandings of pcb high-speed design of vias and breakouts, skew impact, crosstalk, jitter analysis, and more. Additionally, IEEE P370 compliance specifications have been developed to help define SI metrics. Certainly, “Black Magic” represents compelling story telling and marketing (it sells books and SI services), but as we exceed 90GHz bandwidth and 224G signaling one must ask: are there still elements of the “Black Art” in SI?
Bio
Alfred P. Neves is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Wild River Technology. Al has 43 years of experience in the design and application development of semiconductor products, capital equipment design focused on jitter and signal integrity analysis and has successfully been involved with numerous business developments and startup activity for the last 29 years. Al focuses on measure-based model development, ultra-high signal integrity serial link characterization test fixtures, high-speed test fixture design, and platforms for material identification and improving measurement-simulation to 110GHz
