High-speed and high-density chip-to-chip interconnections: Trends and techniques

Electronic circuit and system designers are trying to deal with package and board nonidealities by using advanced circuit techniques such as predistortion, equalization, multilevel coding, and digitally controlled feedforward CDR blocks. This generally increases the power consumption and therefore limits the maximum number of I/O circuit per chip. Improved packaging technologies with well-controlled signal lines and highly stabilized DC supply would definitely make the life easier for circuit designers.