[SI-LIST] Re: DDR2 Signal Probing on SODIMM

  • From: Doug Smith <doug@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: alexh1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 15:02:44 -0700

Ouch! A 3 inch ground lead will make your probe very sensitive to 
every noise source on your board and in the room. Lots of little and 
large spikes will appear over time as people move in the room due to 
ESD events. This can make it impossible to trigger on the "once a day" 
glitch.

Many Agilent scopes have a clean ~100 ps to 300 ps edge (depending on 
model) available at the front panel to check probe response to the 
intended signal.

There are many problems with using a ground lead of most any practical 
length with probes older than 5 or 6 years. For many of the popular 
probes, 1/4 inch is too much connection length. Newer probes have 
damping resistors in the design that make it possible to tolerate a 
ground lead at the expense of sharply lowered bandwidth and of course 
sensitivity to every noise source for 50 feet.

Doug

Alex Horvath wrote:

> I try to avoid probing DDR signals whenever possible but if I have to these 
> work wonders even on vertical boards using the vias as signal contact points. 
> You have to get the adapters for your scope probe model – obviously the 
> default probe tip they sell is good for DC only!
>    
>   http://www.agdevices.com/pages/product/qp/qpmain.html
>    
>   Of course it is extremely difficult to simultaneously ground the 1" scope 
> probe ground. However, I have done tests comparing the 1" ground, 2" and 3" 
> ground to a nearby soldered post @ 200 Mhz and I did not see a large 
> difference in signal quality for my purposes. Of course I highly recommend 
> that you perform your own tests if you use this method. 
> 
> Sharma Rajeev-B01961 <B01961@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:  Hi All,
> What is the best way to probe the DDR Signals on SODIMM?Is there any
> readymade solution(in terms of Connectors) available to probe the DDR
> SODIMM signals?
> I am facing issue in probing the signals on SODIMM as the via's are very
> small and moreover it becomes difficult to hold the probes on these
> vias.
> In my attempt I have used some wire straps with Damp Resistors and
> soldered them on the vias.But just want to understand if there is some
> other better way to do this. 
> Thanks & Regards,
> Rajeev Sharma 
> 
> 
> 
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