Over the past 10 years, the advancement of silicon technology has enabled many applications to process more data and produce higher quality results than had ever been imagined for these applications. Today, advancements in microprocessor technologies are opening doors for even more applications to handle richer data types and produce results much more quickly than was historically possible.

With this new ability to process more data, electronic systems in areas such as telecommunications, industrial automation, video, avionics and many others, now have a need to efficiently move data to and from their processing units. The rate at which data needs to be moved within these systems can now approach several gigabits per second.

Historically, gigabit data rate applications have been relegated to telecommunications and data communication systems. But today, systems such as medical imaging, machine vision, and many others also have the need to implement gigabit serial links within their systems in order to move data efficiently between sources such as high-speed imaging cameras and high definition imaging systems, and data processing units.

Gigabit serial link implementation is not new to the electrical engineering community. However, gigabit serial links have been historically implemented using fiber optic cable and optical modules that convert electrical signals to optical and vice versa. The optical medium is very good for moving very high bit rate data as it is not affected by impediments that typically degrade electrical signals such as EMI, skin effects and cross talk. When high bit rate electrical signals are transmitted over copper media, these impediments, in the electrical domain, often lead to bit errors that typically are not acceptable for many applications.

Ten to 15 years ago, if an engineer wanted to implement multi-gigabit serial links within an application, an optical link was likely to be the only choice available given the state of semiconductor technology at the time. Despite their benefits, optical links have several key drawbacks that make them prohibitive for many applications. These drawbacks include high cost to implement. Typically, optical implementations can cost several times that of copper cable applications, for example.

Additionally, other drawbacks include the skill set for working within the optical domain as well as special testing equipment needed for optical signals. Engineers that have not worked with optical links will have a steeper learning curve in implementing these serial links. These drawbacks often lead to increased development and production costs that many applications may not be able to bear given that most applications have specific price points that need to be met for market acceptance.

Over the past 10 years, advancements in silicon technology have enabled multi-gigabit serial links over copper media such as twisted pair cables and backplane trace. Semiconductor technologies such as receive equalization and transmit pre-emphasis, now can enable engineers to implement multi-gigabit serial links that can reach up to 20 to 40 meters of twisted pair copper media. Further, these new technologies (equalization and transmit pre-emphasis) are now more readily found in integrated circuit devices such as gigabit serdes (Serializer/De-Serializers) that make implementing cable and backplane-based serial links much easier for the system designer. These advances in semiconductor technology are enabling systems designers to cost-effectively implement gigabit serial links within their applications.