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IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

Bit error rate measurement of a high-speed small-voltage signal using a superconducting transmission line

Kazuhiro Shimaoka, Seiichi Tokunaga, Masaaki Nemoto, Isao Yoshida

Published Mar 1, 2001• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We developed a measuring system that has a magnetically shielded wide-band test fixture mounted on a closed-cycle cryo-cooler, and used this system to investigate the feasibility of cryo-packaging technology for high-Tc superconducting digital electronics. In this work, we evaluated the bit-error-rate (BER) performance of a system in which was installed a 50-/spl Omega/ standard microstrip line (MSTL) and a YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/Ox microstrip line to a coplanar waveguide (CPW) transmission line converter (MCC). In the experiment, we used 3-Gbps, 2/sup 15/-1 pseudo-random binary sequence (PRBS) signals. The temperature of the test fixture was 20 K. Results showed that the BER was 3.74/spl times/10/sup -9/ for the 50-/spl Omega/ MSTL when the signal amplitude at the sample was 13.3 mV, and 1.52/spl times/10/sup -9/ for the MCC when the amplitude was 30.8 mV. The effect of the signal loss and impedance mismatch on the BER is also discussed.

DOI
10.1109/77.919538

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We developed a measuring system that has a magnetically shielded wide-band test fixture mounted on a closed-cycle cryo-cooler, and used this system to investigate the feasibility of cryo-packaging technology for high-Tc superconducting digital electronics. In this work, we evaluated the bit-error-rate (BER) performance of a system in which was installed a 50-/spl Omega/ standard microstrip line (MSTL) and a YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/Ox microstrip line to a coplanar waveguide (CPW) transmission line converter (MCC). In the experiment, we used 3-Gbps, 2/sup 15/-1 pseudo-random binary sequence (PRBS) signals. The temperature of the test fixture was 20 K. Results showed that the BER was 3.74/spl times/10/sup -9/ for the 50-/spl Omega/ MSTL when the signal amplitude at the sample was 13.3 mV, and 1.52/spl times/10/sup -9/ for the MCC when the amplitude was 30.8 mV. The effect of the signal loss and impedance mismatch on the BER is also discussed.
We have investigated and tried to improve the packaging technologies for a bit-error-rate (BER) measurement system for high-T/sub c/ superconducting circuits. Signal cables, test fixture, and magnetic shields were specially designed and assembled for the BER measurement system, taking into account electrical losses, signal reflection, heat inflow, and power consumption of a cryocooler. BER was further improved by changing the way of connection between the semiconductor amplifiers outside the sample vacuum chamber. These improvements led to a BER less than 10/sup -12/ at an output voltage (V/sub out/) of 1.7 and 2.3 mV for a 50-/spl Omega/ standard microstrip transmission line and a superconducting microstrip-line to coplanar-waveguide transmission-line converter, respectively. The temperature rise of the test fixture was as low as about 2 K. These values are approximately one order of magnitude smaller than those in the previous measurement system and small enough to be achieved by using superconducting interface circuits. Furthermore, 1-Gb/s operation of a superconducting quantum interference device array-type interface circuit was demonstrated in the BER measurement system at 40 K.
We have evaluated and tried to improve the measurement precision of a bit error rate (BER) measuring system for superconducting circuits equipped with a magnetic shield and a cryocooler. A noise model has suggested that the most effective way of improving BER is to reduce the noise figure of the wideband pulse amplifier (WPA). BER measurement using a 3-Gbps, 2/sup 15/-1 pseudo random binary signal showed that by using low-noise WPA (noisefigure=4 dB) a 12.0-mV output voltage is required to obtain a minimum BER of 1.19/spl times/10/sup -15/ (a 10/sup -7/ improvement over the previous system) for a 50 /spl Omega/ standard microstrip. A BER of a La/sub 0.2/Yb/sub 0.9/Ba/sub 1.9/Cu/sub 3/O/sub x//MgO/Au microstrip-line to coplanar-waveguide transition-line converter (MCC) was also measured. It was found that the minimum BER was 4.87/spl times/10/sup -13/ (a 10/sup -5/ improvement over the previous system) when the output voltage was 23.8-mV. However these measured BER values were larger than those expected by the noise model. The cause of the larger measured BER is discussed. A minimum BER of 3.64/spl times/10/sup -55/ in 14.8-mV output voltage for a 50 /spl Omega/ standard microstrip was obtained when the cryo-cooler was not operated (without the noise from a cryo-cooler).
We report the gigahertz experimental results of time and frequency performance on YBCO high temperature superconductor (HTS) and gold coplanar transmission lines. An on-wafer direct probing measurement system was used to collect data at cryogenic temperatures on both YBCO and gold coplanar lines. The insertion loss of the 6-cm lines at a frequency of 3.0 GHz was measured to be -0.12 dB for the superconducting line compared to -10.7 dB for the gold line at 80 K. Error rate and eye-diagram measurements were performed on the packaged lines and show the correlation between the insertion loss of the line and the attenuation of a Pseudo Random Bit Sequence (PBRS). The superconducting line measured at 77 K had a BER rate of less than 10/sup -11/ at a data rate of 3 Gb/s. The measured eye height was 350 mV for the YBCO compared to 100 mV for a gold line at 3 Gb/s and a temperature of 77 K for the packaged 6-cm lines.
A superconducting sampling measurement system is a highly useful tool for analyzing ultrahigh speed electrical signals in cryogenic environments, due to a time resolution at ps levels with low current levels of /spl mu/A. The digitizing sampling system is composed of a Josephson sampling circuit, digital delay line, feedback signal detection circuit and a computer. The Josephson sampling circuit is designed for ETL's Nb-AlO/sub x/-Nb junction technology. A TDR measurement method using a CPW flip-chip bonding technique is proposed. The theoretical spatial resolution is estimated to reach around a hundred /spl mu/m.
We report the gigahertz experimental results of time and frequency performance on YBCO high-temperature superconductor and gold coplanar transmission lines. An on-wafer direct probing measurement system was used to collect data at cryogenic temperatures on both YBCO and gold coplanar lines. The insertion loss of the 6 cm lines at a frequency of 2.5 GHz was measured to be −0.03 dB for the superconducting line compared to −10.4 dB for the gold line at 80 K. Eye-diagram measurements were performed on the packaged lines and show the correlation between the insertion loss of the line and the attenuation of a pseudorandom bit sequence. The measured eye height was 170 mV for the YBCO compared to 90 mV for a gold line at 1 Gbit/s and a temperature of 77 K for the packaged 6 cm lines.
Transmission losses in Nb superconducting coplanar waveguide (CPW) and microstrip lines were quantified at 2-mm wavelength and 3.3 K using a network analyzer. The loss measurement utilized both half-wavelength resonators and electrically long transmission lines. Validation of the measurement was achieved using a silicon membrane-based waveguide-to-CPW transition with low return loss across a broad bandwidth. Intrinsic losses were measured within a parametric space defined by frequency, temperature, signal power, and magnetic field. The multidimensional information allowed the breakdown of overall losses into major components, including quasiparticle loss, two-level system dielectric loss, vortex flow loss, and radiation loss. The performance of these transmission lines was extrapolated into the terahertz range based on these findings.