Tightly-coupled near-field communication-link connector-replacement chips

#The present invention relates generally to signal communication paths in electronic systems, and relates more particularly to methods and apparatus for coupling signals between physically discontinuous conduction paths through near-field communication link circuits.

#Advances in semiconductor manufacturing and circuit design technologies have enabled the development and production of integrated circuits with increasingly higher operational frequencies. In turn, electronic products and systems incorporating such integrated circuits are able to provide much greater functionality than previous generations of products. This additional functionality has generally included the processing of larger and larger amounts of data at higher and higher speeds.

#Many electronic systems include two or more printed circuit boards, or similar substrates, upon which the aforementioned high-speed integrated circuits are mounted, and on and through which various signals are routed to and from these integrated circuits. In electronic systems with at least two boards, and the need to communicate information between those boards, a variety of connector and backplane architectures have been developed in order that information can flow between those boards. Unfortunately, such connector and backplane architectures introduce a variety of impedance discontinuities into the signal path which result in a degradation of signal quality, also referred to as signal integrity. Connecting two boards by conventional means, such as signal-carrying mechanical connectors generally creates two, closely-spaced discontinuities, and this complex discontinuity requires expensive electronics to negotiate.

#FIG. 1 is a high-level schematic representation of a signal path between two integrated circuits, each of the two integrated circuits disposed on a different board, and wherein the signal path includes backplane transceivers, a backplane, and a pair of physical connectors carrying the signals to and from the backplane.

#FIG. 2 is a high-level schematic representation similar to FIG. 1, but additional shows various discontinuities in the signal path.

#FIG. 3 is a high-level schematic representation of some of the components of a signal path between two integrated circuits, each of the two integrated circuits disposed on a different board, and further shows discontinuities and terminations to reduce or eliminate the loss of signal integrity that would otherwise result.

#Generally, embodiments of the present invention provide methods and apparatus for transferring data through a physically discontiguous signal conduction path without the physical size and signal degradation introduced by a signal-carrying mechanical connector, and without the associated costs and power consumption of equalization circuits. Various embodiments of the present invention provide data transfer between physically discontiguous portions of a signal conduction path by means of near-field coupling apparatus which have tightly-linked transmitter and receiver pairs. These transmitters and receivers are typically implemented as integrated circuits. Antennas for these may be internal or external with respect to the integrated circuits.

#In some embodiments of the present invention, the transmitter/receiver pair includes a first chip with a transmitter and a second chip with a receiver; while in other embodiments the transmitter/receiver pair includes a first chip with one or more transceivers, and a second chip with one or more transceivers.

#In some embodiments, the signal conduction path is single-ended, whereas in other embodiments the signal conduction path includes a differential pair.