Bit error rate (BER) is the ultimate gauge of link performance, but an accurate measure of BER is not possible in relatively short, multi-million-bit simulations.

Instead, this analysis suggests the following pass/fail criteria, which consist of two rules:

1. 1. A link must meet the receiver’s eye height (EH) and eye width (EW) requirements
   2. A link must meet criteria 1 for at least half of Tx Preset settings (≥5 out of 10)

• Criteria 1 establishes that the there is a viable set of settings, which results in the desired BER. The specific EH and EW required by the receiver is implementation-dependent.
• Criteria 2 ensures that the link has adequate margin and is not overly sensitive to the Tx Preset setting.

View Signal Integrity Challenges for PCIe 5.0 OCP Topologies Video >