Measurement of Laddering Wave in Lossy Serpentine Delay Line

The clock signals are required integrity over the system, it is desirable that all clock signals are distributed with a uniform delay. The backward crosstalk among the sections of a serpentine delay line accumulates to appear as a laddering wave in the receiving waveform. This occurrence results in severe signal distortion. The lossy effect of thin-film serpentine delay line has been investigated with both simulation and experiment approaches. The test microstrip serpentine line was made on silicon substrate; the TDT measurement results have been verified with those obtained by the SPICE simulation. Due to the effect of the resistive line, the laddering waves in lossy serpentine were depressed.