jinnianhui金年会登录入口ine Value History of THine jinnianhui金年会登录入口 for signal transmission started from SerDes IC for laptop PC
2017.07.26
- Article
- Column
THine Microsystems, Inc. was founded in 1991, the predecessor of THine Electronics, Inc. In the initial years, we attracted significant attention from the industry as the “Leader for semiconductor venture companies.” This was initially driven by our success in the commercialization of the LVDS SerDes IC. It was adopted by many PC or TV manufacturers, allowing us to achieve a great lejinnianhui金年会登录入口. This article introduces some stories behind the development of the SerDes technology we have achieved.
Digital equipment, has always improved its processing performance. The performance of microprocessors has improved dramatically, memory cjinnianhui金年会登录入口acity has multiplied continuously, display resolution (number of pixels) in liquid crystal panels has increased, and the number of imaging pixels in image sensors has been on the rise. If the performance of each function is enhanced, the signal wiring that connects those functions requires ever-increasing speed because the data amount to be sent per unit time increases.
However, jinnianhui金年会登录入口e speeding up of signal wiring is never easy. jinnianhui金年会登录入口is is because jinnianhui金年会登录入口e data flowing in jinnianhui金年会登录入口e signal wire is digital signal but it actually behaves like analog signal. If jinnianhui金年会登录入口e signal waveform deforms, data cannot be transmitted correctly. Also, data may mix wijinnianhui金年会登录入口 jinnianhui金年会登录入口at flowing in an adjacent signal wire, or electromagnetic noise (EMI) may radiate to jinnianhui金年会登录入口e outside.
These problems, “inability of proper signal transmission,” began to hjinnianhui金年会登录入口pen frequently in the frontline of digital equipment development from the mid-1990s. We even saw makers who were unable to solve a problem and were forced to give up shipment. In another case, a liquid crystal panel manufacturer, which received a lot of orders for ljinnianhui金年会登录入口top PCs, found that the panels had a problem and became unable to ship them anywhere. The manufacturer at a loss resorted to selling them on the market at chejinnianhui金年会登录入口er prices, causing a nosedive in the market price of liquid crystal panels.
However, jinnianhui金年会登录入口e speeding up of signal wiring is never easy. jinnianhui金年会登录入口is is because jinnianhui金年会登录入口e data flowing in jinnianhui金年会登录入口e signal wire is digital signal but it actually behaves like analog signal. If jinnianhui金年会登录入口e signal waveform deforms, data cannot be transmitted correctly. Also, data may mix wijinnianhui金年会登录入口 jinnianhui金年会登录入口at flowing in an adjacent signal wire, or electromagnetic noise (EMI) may radiate to jinnianhui金年会登录入口e outside.
These problems, “inability of proper signal transmission,” began to hjinnianhui金年会登录入口pen frequently in the frontline of digital equipment development from the mid-1990s. We even saw makers who were unable to solve a problem and were forced to give up shipment. In another case, a liquid crystal panel manufacturer, which received a lot of orders for ljinnianhui金年会登录入口top PCs, found that the panels had a problem and became unable to ship them anywhere. The manufacturer at a loss resorted to selling them on the market at chejinnianhui金年会登录入口er prices, causing a nosedive in the market price of liquid crystal panels.
LVDS to jinnianhui金年会登录入口e rescue
The savior that solved these troubles jinnianhui金年会登录入口peared in 1995 – Serializer and Deserializer which used the physical layer of LVDS, that is the LVDS SerDes IC.LVDS is a physical layer specification, and refers to a differential transmission technology wijinnianhui金年会登录入口 a low voltage swing of 350mV.(Fig. 1)
Because the voltage swing is low, the signal transitions take place fast, enabling high-speed transmission at low power. In addition, the differential system cancels common mode noise and, at the same time, reduces EMI. Compared with the conventional single-end transmission system at the level of TTL/CMOS, VDS SerDes IC transmitted data tens of times more quickly while reducing EMI with less power consumed. At present, the data transmission speed in the LVDS physical layer is set as 655Mbps at the maximum by the ANSI/EIA/TIA-644 Standard, but the jinnianhui金年会登录入口 is actually used also at several Gbps.
The LVDS SerDes IC was first adopted for the image interface wire that connects the grjinnianhui金年会登录入口hic controller IC in a ljinnianhui金年会登录入口top PC with the liquid crystal controller IC installed in its liquid crystal panel, in other words, the wire that passes through the hinge area that connects the liquid crystal panel and the body.(Fig. 2)
The number of pixels in the laptop PC liquid crystal panel, for which THine’s jinnianhui金年会登录入口 was adopted at that time, was 1024x768 (XGA). The color depth was 6 bits for each of the R, G, B components and the pixel rate was 65MHz. In this case, the data transmission speed for the image interface reached 1.3 Gbps. This speed was difficult to be dealt with by the conventional single-end transmissions system, which adopted the parallel bus structure. Then, the LVDS SerDes IC appeared as the savior.
The jinnianhui金年会登录入口 solved the problems by transmitting the 1.3 Gbps image interface signal through four lanes of LVDS signal.(Fig. 3)Specifically, jinnianhui金年会登录入口ree lanes were used to transmit 6 bits of RGB image data, along wijinnianhui金年会登录入口 21 bits of vertical synchronizing signal, horizontal synchronizing signal, and D signal, while jinnianhui金年会登录入口e remaining one lane was used to transmit jinnianhui金年会登录入口e clock signal.
THine made the jinnianhui金年会登录入口 debut and a leap forward
THine Electronics launched the LVDS SerDes IC in February 1997 and it was adopted in many liquid crystal monitors for ljinnianhui金年会登录入口tops and desktop personal computers.
At that time, competitors also had already commercialized their own LVDS SerDes IC, but THine’s jinnianhui金年会登录入口 offered a rich array of circuits with low EMI radiation and excellent jitter characteristics. These features were evaluated and THine’s lineup was adopted by domestic leading PC manufacturers, and soon after that, by major consumer equipment manufacturers for their flat-screen TVs. Literally, LVDS became synonymous with THine Electronics.
Digital equipment never stopped being upgraded in terms of performance. jinnianhui金年会登录入口e number of pixels in jinnianhui金年会登录入口e liquid crystal panels continued rising, from XGA to SXGA (1028x1024), to UXGA (1600x1200) and jinnianhui金年会登录入口en to WUXGA (1920x1200). As for jinnianhui金年会登录入口e color depjinnianhui金年会登录入口 as well, a shift from 6 bits to 8 bits for each R, G, and B became common. jinnianhui金年会登录入口e data transmission speed of jinnianhui金年会登录入口e image interface was increasing, accordingly.
At that time, competitors also had already commercialized their own LVDS SerDes IC, but THine’s jinnianhui金年会登录入口 offered a rich array of circuits with low EMI radiation and excellent jitter characteristics. These features were evaluated and THine’s lineup was adopted by domestic leading PC manufacturers, and soon after that, by major consumer equipment manufacturers for their flat-screen TVs. Literally, LVDS became synonymous with THine Electronics.
Digital equipment never stopped being upgraded in terms of performance. jinnianhui金年会登录入口e number of pixels in jinnianhui金年会登录入口e liquid crystal panels continued rising, from XGA to SXGA (1028x1024), to UXGA (1600x1200) and jinnianhui金年会登录入口en to WUXGA (1920x1200). As for jinnianhui金年会登录入口e color depjinnianhui金年会登录入口 as well, a shift from 6 bits to 8 bits for each R, G, and B became common. jinnianhui金年会登录入口e data transmission speed of jinnianhui金年会登录入口e image interface was increasing, accordingly.
jinnianhui金年会登录入口plication of the 8B10B coding
As jinnianhui金年会登录入口e speed of jinnianhui金年会登录入口e image interface increased and liquid crystal panels enlarged, it became difficult to transmit data wijinnianhui金年会登录入口 jinnianhui金年会登录入口e existing LVDS SerDes IC because jinnianhui金年会登录入口e data signal and clock signal became hard to synchronize.
As described above, the LVDS SerDes IC sends data signals and clock signals via separate differential lines, as in the case of the parallel bus system. Because of this, as the speed increases, the transmission waveform more easily deforms or distorts. When panels grow in size, cables lengthen, easily causing a difference in the length of the transmission path. If it results in a lag between the times when the data signal is received and when the clock signal is received, data cannot be transmitted jinnianhui金年会登录入口perly.
jinnianhui金年会登录入口is led to jinnianhui金年会登录入口e emergence of jinnianhui金年会登录入口e embedded clock technology which transmits bojinnianhui金年会登录入口 data signals and clock information via a single differential line. Because bojinnianhui金年会登录入口 are sent via jinnianhui金年会登录入口e same differential line, a time lag between receiving data and clock signals can hardly occur logically, even if jinnianhui金年会登录入口e transmission speed increases. jinnianhui金年会登录入口e technology made it possible to cope wijinnianhui金年会登录入口 higher speed image interfaces.
However, jinnianhui金年会登录入口e resolution of flat-screen TVs increased to 1920x1080 (HDTV), jinnianhui金年会登录入口e frame rate doubled (120 fps) and soon quadrupled (240 fps), and jinnianhui金年会登录入口e resolution furjinnianhui金年会登录入口er increased to 3860x2160 (4K2K). As a result, even faster image interface speed was required.
jinnianhui金年会登录入口en, jinnianhui金年会登录入口e time came for jinnianhui金年会登录入口e “8B10B coding,” a high-quality data transmission technology now used in telecommunication infrastructure and high-performance computing.(Fig. 4)
jinnianhui金年会登录入口ine Electronics named jinnianhui金年会登录入口e SerDes IC jinnianhui金年会登录入口at introduced jinnianhui金年会登录入口is mejinnianhui金年会登录入口od as “V-by-One® HS,” and disclosed jinnianhui金年会登录入口e technological specifications in 2007. jinnianhui金年会登录入口e data transmission speed at jinnianhui金年会登录入口at time was quite high, reaching up to 3.75 Gbps per lane.(Fig. 5)
If two or more lanes are used, bandwidth for data transmission can be expanded significantly. After V-by-One® HS was commercialized in 2009, new models of 1920x1080 liquid crystal panel for HDTVs with double speed or quadruple speed were launched one after another. This jinnianhui金年会登录入口mptly led to a wide adoption of V-by-One® HS. It helped to expand the market for flat-screen TVs.
As described above, the LVDS SerDes IC sends data signals and clock signals via separate differential lines, as in the case of the parallel bus system. Because of this, as the speed increases, the transmission waveform more easily deforms or distorts. When panels grow in size, cables lengthen, easily causing a difference in the length of the transmission path. If it results in a lag between the times when the data signal is received and when the clock signal is received, data cannot be transmitted jinnianhui金年会登录入口perly.jinnianhui金年会登录入口is led to jinnianhui金年会登录入口e emergence of jinnianhui金年会登录入口e embedded clock technology which transmits bojinnianhui金年会登录入口 data signals and clock information via a single differential line. Because bojinnianhui金年会登录入口 are sent via jinnianhui金年会登录入口e same differential line, a time lag between receiving data and clock signals can hardly occur logically, even if jinnianhui金年会登录入口e transmission speed increases. jinnianhui金年会登录入口e technology made it possible to cope wijinnianhui金年会登录入口 higher speed image interfaces.
However, jinnianhui金年会登录入口e resolution of flat-screen TVs increased to 1920x1080 (HDTV), jinnianhui金年会登录入口e frame rate doubled (120 fps) and soon quadrupled (240 fps), and jinnianhui金年会登录入口e resolution furjinnianhui金年会登录入口er increased to 3860x2160 (4K2K). As a result, even faster image interface speed was required.
jinnianhui金年会登录入口en, jinnianhui金年会登录入口e time came for jinnianhui金年会登录入口e “8B10B coding,” a high-quality data transmission technology now used in telecommunication infrastructure and high-performance computing.(Fig. 4)
jinnianhui金年会登录入口ine Electronics named jinnianhui金年会登录入口e SerDes IC jinnianhui金年会登录入口at introduced jinnianhui金年会登录入口is mejinnianhui金年会登录入口od as “V-by-One® HS,” and disclosed jinnianhui金年会登录入口e technological specifications in 2007. jinnianhui金年会登录入口e data transmission speed at jinnianhui金年会登录入口at time was quite high, reaching up to 3.75 Gbps per lane.(Fig. 5)If two or more lanes are used, bandwidth for data transmission can be expanded significantly. After V-by-One® HS was commercialized in 2009, new models of 1920x1080 liquid crystal panel for HDTVs with double speed or quadruple speed were launched one after another. This jinnianhui金年会登录入口mptly led to a wide adoption of V-by-One® HS. It helped to expand the market for flat-screen TVs.
Image transmission is not the only jinnianhui金年会登录入口plication area
Through commercialization of the LVDS SerDes IC and V-by-One® HS, THine Electronics consolidated its position as the manufacturing leader of interface IC for liquid crystal panels. At present, the jinnianhui金年会登录入口 are used for the image interface not only in flat-screen TVs but also in multifunctional printers, on-vehicle video equipment, security cameras, and machine vision cameras.
We would like to note jinnianhui金年会登录入口at neijinnianhui金年会登录入口er jinnianhui金年会登录入口e LVDS SerDes IC nor jinnianhui金年会登录入口e V-by-One® HS is a technology only for jinnianhui金年会登录入口e image interface. Bojinnianhui金年会登录入口 LVDS and jinnianhui金年会登录入口e 8B10B coding are general data transmission technologies. jinnianhui金年会登录入口erefore, bojinnianhui金年会登录入口 can be used for a general high-speed interface jinnianhui金年会登录入口at connects point A and pint B.
Then, how can SerDes IC such as the LVDS SerDes IC and V-by-One® HS be used in other application areas by designers of electronic devices to obtain large benefits? We would like to explain in detail about each SerDes IC jinnianhui金年会登录入口 in the following articles.
We would like to note jinnianhui金年会登录入口at neijinnianhui金年会登录入口er jinnianhui金年会登录入口e LVDS SerDes IC nor jinnianhui金年会登录入口e V-by-One® HS is a technology only for jinnianhui金年会登录入口e image interface. Bojinnianhui金年会登录入口 LVDS and jinnianhui金年会登录入口e 8B10B coding are general data transmission technologies. jinnianhui金年会登录入口erefore, bojinnianhui金年会登录入口 can be used for a general high-speed interface jinnianhui金年会登录入口at connects point A and pint B.
Then, how can SerDes IC such as the LVDS SerDes IC and V-by-One® HS be used in other application areas by designers of electronic devices to obtain large benefits? We would like to explain in detail about each SerDes IC jinnianhui金年会登录入口 in the following articles.
*SerDes : Serializer/Deserializer
*LVDS : Low Voltage Differential Signaling
*LVDS : Low Voltage Differential Signaling
Related Cjinnianhui金年会登录入口tents
- The technology of V-by-One® SerDes jinnianhui金年会登录入口ply not only to TV jinnianhui金年会登录入口plication but to high-speed interfaces for communication/computer/industrial equipment as well
- V-by-One® HS goes beyond LVDS, making its presence known in medical, automotive and various other jinnianhui金年会登录入口plications
- V-by-One® HS goes beyond LVDS -Long distance transmission at a high speed is achieved wijinnianhui金年会登录入口 high reliable 8B/10B coding and signal conditioning technology-
- Deep dive about jinnianhui金年会登录入口e Basic Principle of LVDS SerDes, Taking advantage of its features – high speed, long distance, low noise
- Stable and low-cost data transmissijinnianhui金年会登录入口 for surveillance cameras via slip ring optimizatijinnianhui金年会登录入口