The Impact Of The RS103 Excitation On The Differential Received Eye Patterns For Digital Interconnects - A Time-Domain Approach

Compliance to the RS103 standard for space applications is generally required by many programs. Although the test requirements for this standard are well known, it is not always well known how the RS103 excitation affects the received signals for digital applications, for example. This paper utilizes a transmission line model to help enable a better understanding of the degradations that can be induced upon the received eye patterns from shielded differential transmission lines for digital applications that are exposed to a constant 20V/mRS103 excitation. It is determined that the most serious degradations occur in the form of increased timing jitter, as well as reduced eye openings that can increase the bit-error-rate for the given digital interconnect and for operational bit rates up to 3.0 Gbps. It is also emphasized that low end-to-end transfer impedances that include the effects of the shields, connectors, and pigtails, as well as highly balanced transmissions, can help mitigate these degradations.