Acknowledgments

As illustrated by the long list of contributing coauthors, this book is the product of more than a decade of high-speed signal-integrity design experience on the part of many engineers at Rambus Inc. All the former, and current, Rambus SI engineers have contributed directly (or indirectly) to this book through their publications at Rambus. In addition to those listed as coauthors, these contributors include Dr. Wendem Beyene, Mr. Newton Cheng, Mr. Ben Chia, Ms. June Feng, Dr. Ching-Chao Huang, Dr. Cathy Huang, Dr. Woopoung Kim, Mr. Qi Lin, Mr. Frank Lambrecht, Dr. H.J. Liaw, Dr. Chris Madden, Dr. Xioning Qi, Mr. Ali Sarfaraz, and Ms. Ling Yang. As you can see from the contents of this book, the techniques discussed here go beyond the work of SI engineers. Specifically, the signal-integrity engineers at Rambus work closely with cross-functional teams that include architecture, circuit design, and system engineering. Many of these Rambus engineers have indirectly contributed to this book, in various ways, by working with us. We want to thank them all for their contributions. In particular, we want to distinguish a few individuals who have made direct contributions. The data coding (to reduce simultaneous switching noise) is largely the result of work done by Mr. Fred Ware, Dr. John Wilson, and Dr. Aliazam Abbasfar.

Special thanks also go to our former and current managers at Rambus. Without their support, this book would not have been possible. Particularly, we want to thank Mr. David Nguyen and Dr. Ely Tsern, whose encouragement made our work enjoyable. We also want to thank Mr. Kevin Donnelly, who provided some of the earliest encouragement when this book was just an idea. We also want to express our deep gratitude to Ms. Sharon Holt and to Mr. John Kent, both for their generous support, and for providing us with editorial resources.

Much of the transmission-line theory, and the recursive convolution method we describe, are based on the pioneering work done by Dr. Dmitri Kuzetzov and Prof. Jose Schutt-Aine. We want to thank them for their outstanding work and friendly discussions. The discussion on causality was inspired by discussions with Dr. Subramanian Lalgudi (Ansys). The editors also want to express our respect for the pioneering work of Prof. Mark Horowitz and his students. The on-chip measurement techniques and statistical simulation methodology described in this book were co-developed by Stanford University and Rambus, under Prof. Horowitz’s guidance.

The editors also want to express our sincere gratitude to our reviewers: Dr. Dale Becker (IBM), Prof. Paul Franzon (NC), and Prof. Jose Schutt-Aine (UIUC) for their time and encouragement. These individuals are among the pioneers in the signal-integrity field, and their work laid the foundation for many of the topics covered in this book.

Our appreciation also goes to the Prentice Hall editors and staff, including Bernard Goodwin, Betsy Harris, Paula Lowell, Debbie Williams, and Michelle Housley, for their editorial support and encouragement. Mr. Greg Morris is also gratefully acknowledged, for his grammatical editing and document formatting. The editors also want to thank Ms. Yi Jiang for providing the cover picture.

Finally, we are deeply indebted for the support that we received from our families: Dan’s wife Myung (and sons Christopher and Terry), and Chuck’s wife Jackie (and daughter Caterina and son Michael); who supported us through their endless love. This book is a result of more than three years of effort. In particular, we want to thank our kids, for their encouragement, when they kept asking us “Dad, have you finished your book yet?” Without our family’s love and support, which allowed us to work countless weekends and nights, this book would not be possible.

DAN OH AND CHUCK YUAN