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MPC932
MOTOROLA ADVANCED CLOCK DRIVERS DEVICE DATA
76
Power Supply Filtering
The MPC932 is a mixed analog/digital product and as such
it exhibits some sensitivities that would not necessarily be
seen on a fully digital product. Analog circuitry is naturally sus-
ceptible to random noise, especially if this noise is seen on the
power supply pins. The MPC932 provides separate power
supplies for the output buffers (VCCO) and the internal PLL
(VCCA) of the device. The purpose of this design technique is
to try and isolate the high switching noise digital outputs from
the relatively sensitive internal analog phase–locked loop. In a
controlled environment such as an evaluation board this level
of isolation is sufficient. However, in a digital system environ-
ment where it is more difficult to minimize noise on the power
supplies a second level of isolation may be required. The sim-
plest form of isolation is a power supply filter on the VCCA pin
for the MPC932.
Figure 3. Power Supply Filter
VCCA
VCC
MPC932
0.01F
22F
0.01F
3.3V
RS=10-15
Figure 3 illustrates a typical power supply filter scheme. The
MPC932 is most susceptible to noise with spectral content in
the 1KHz to 1MHz range. Therefore the filter should be de-
signed to target this range. The key parameter that needs to be
met in the final filter design is the DC voltage drop that will be
seen between the VCC supply and the VCCA pin of the
MPC932. From the data sheet the IVCCA current (the current
sourced through the VCCA pin) is typically 15mA (20mA maxi-
mum), assuming that a minimum of 3.0V must be maintained
on the VCCA pin very little DC voltage drop can be tolerated
when a 3.3V VCC supply is used. The resistor shown in
Figure 3 must have a resistance of 10–15
to meet the voltage
drop criteria. The RC filter pictured will provide a broadband
filter with approximately 100:1 attenuation for noise whose
spectral content is above 20KHz. As the noise frequency
crosses the series resonant point of an individual capacitor its
overall impedance begins to look inductive and thus increases
with increasing frequency. The parallel capacitor combination
shown ensures that a low impedance path to ground exists for
frequencies well above the bandwidth of the PLL.
Although the MPC932 has several design features to mini-
mize the susceptibility to power supply noise (isolated power
and grounds and fully differential PLL) there still may be ap-
plications in which overall performance is being degraded due
to system power supply noise. The power supply filter
schemes discussed in this section should be adequate to elim-
inate power supply noise related problems in most designs.
Driving Transmission Lines
The MPC932 clock driver was designed to drive high speed
signals in a terminated transmission line environment. To pro-
vide the optimum flexibility to the user the output drivers were
designed to exhibit the lowest impedance possible. With an
output impedance of less than 10
the drivers can drive either
parallel or series terminated transmission lines. For more infor-
mation on transmission lines the reader is referred to applica-
tion note AN1091 in the Timing Solutions data book
(DL207/D).
In most high performance clock networks point–to–point
distribution of signals is the method of choice. In a point–to–
point scheme either series terminated or parallel terminated
transmission lines can be used. The parallel technique termi-
nates the signal at the end of the line with a 50
resistance to
VCC/2. This technique draws a fairly high level of DC current
and thus only a single terminated line can be driven by each
output of the MPC932 clock driver. For the series terminated
case however there is no DC current draw, thus the outputs
can drive multiple series terminated lines. Figure 4 illustrates
an output driving a single series terminated line vs two series
terminated lines in parallel. When taken to its extreme the fan-
out of the MPC932 clock driver is effectively doubled due to its
capability to drive multiple lines.
Figure 4. Single versus Dual Transmission Lines
7
IN
MPC932
OUTPUT
BUFFER
RS = 43
ZO = 50
OutA
7
IN
MPC932
OUTPUT
BUFFER
RS = 43
ZO = 50
OutB0
RS = 43
ZO = 50
OutB1
The waveform plots of Figure 5 show the simulation results
of an output driving a single line vs two lines. In both cases the
drive capability of the MPC932 output buffers is more than suf-
ficient to drive 50
transmission lines on the incident edge.
Note from the delay measurements in the simulations a delta
of only 43ps exists between the two differently loaded outputs.
This suggests that the dual line driving need not be used exclu-
sively to maintain the tight output–to–output skew of the
MPC932. The output waveform in Figure 5 shows a step in the
waveform, this step is caused by the impedance mismatch
seen looking into the driver. The parallel combination of the
43
series resistor plus the output impedance does not match
the parallel combination of the line impedances. The voltage
wave launched down the two lines will equal:
2