International Business Machines Corporation

Rubina Firdaus Ahmed

Pravin S Patel

Bradley Donald Herrman

Peter Robert Seidel

Bhyrav M Mutnury

Daniel Mark Dreps

Moises Cases

Nam Huu Pham

Lloyd Andre Walls

Jose A Hejase

James Douglas Jordan

Kent Barclay Howieson

A frequency band splitter is disclosed. The frequency band splitter includes a first, a second, and a third waveguides. A first narrow rectangular waveguide is utilized to connect the first waveguide to second waveguide. The first narrow rectangular waveguide has a first width to allow signals of a frequency band centered around a first frequency to be transmitted from the first waveguide to the second waveguide. A second narrow rectangular waveguide is utilized to connect the first waveguide to the third waveguide. The second narrow rectangular waveguide has a second width, which is different from the first width, to allow signals of a frequency band centered around a second frequency to be transmitted from the first waveguide to the third waveguide.

Method for performing frequency band splitting

Testing an electrical component, the component including a printed circuit board ('PCB') with a number of traces, the traces organized in pairs with each trace of a pair carrying current in opposite directions and separated from one another by a substrate layer of the PCB, where testing of the electrical component includes: dynamically and iteratively until a present impedance for a pair of traces of the component is greater than a predetermined threshold impedance: increasing, by an impedance varying device at the behest of a testing device, magnetic field strength of a magnetic field applied to the pair of traces by the impedance varying device, including increasing the present impedance of the pair of traces; measuring, by the testing device, one or more operating parameters; and recording, by the testing device, the measurements of the operating parameters.

Testing an electrical component

Embodiments of the invention include a common mode cancellation circuit and method for correcting signal skew in a differential circuit. According to one embodiment, an op amp circuit is used to correct the mismatch between transmission line lengths in the differential circuit. The CMCC can be embodied as an ASIC and added on to an existing differential signaling systems to correct and compensate for board wiring skew or other causes of phase misalignment. The result is restoration of the cross-over intersection of the plus and minus signals of the differential pair closer to the common voltage level point, as if the signals had been in phase.

Common mode cancellation in differential networks

A method of electrically qualifying high speed printed circuit board (PCB) connectors includes mounting a PCB connector on a test card, sending bit patterns through a first portion of the test card, evaluating a waveform on a sense signal on a second portion of the test card for the bit patterns launched on said first portion of the test card to measure common mode noise, and comparing the measured common mode noise of the second portion of the test card to a golden standard performed on a pre-qualified connector. The first portion of the test card comprises connectors to inject bit patterns. The second portion of the test card includes a split plane which induces common mode noise on a sense signal, the sense signal, and a termination pack. If the measured common mode noise on the PCB connector is worse than the golden standard, then the PCB connector is disqualified. If the measured common mode noise on the PCB connector is as good as or better than the golden standard, then the PCB connector is qualified. A first section of the PCB connector connects to the first portion of the test card and a second section of the PCB connector connects to the second portion of the test card. Transmission lines in the test card and the sense line are tightly coupled by shortening a distance between the sense line and the transmission lines.

Method and apparatus to electrically qualify high speed PCB connectors

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Cary, NC, United States of America

Rubina Firdaus Ahmed