Packaging considerations for high-speed single-ended and differential nets

In this paper, the differences in packaging performance between single-ended and differential signaling schemes are studied numerically and validated with measurements. Typical on-board nets were used for the comparisons at various data-rates to capture potential frequency dependencies. Large-scale simulations were performed on full package level to examine the effects of non-ideal ground return on signal integrity. Eye-diagrams and bit-error-rate (BER) were studied using an internal time-domain simulator. An FCPBGA package and a PCB were fabricated and tested to validate simulation results. ©2006 IEEE.