#Southern #Minnesota #IEEE #Computer #Society #IBM #Serial #Data

Abstract: Serial data (SerDes) links are used within IBM systems to transmit data between nodes, processors, accelerators, and memory.  As the performance of our processors continue to grow, our link performance plays a critical role in delivering data with high bandwidth and low latency.  To characterize our high speed SerDes interfaces, we developed a platform that can characterize the circuits on our new technology nodes and also allow us to develop new training algorithms.  The test platform is centered around a Raspberry Pi which communicates to our custom test vehicle on a wafer.  The platform has allowed us to find hardware bugs that would have otherwise caused another rit and optimize our algorithms for faster training times and better convergence.