Abstract

General purpose supercomputing is best accomplished today with the use of multiple high performing central processors. Performance of these systems is greatly dependent upon the operating frequency of each individual processor which begins with the operating frequency of the individual integrated circuit components used to implement the logic. As operating frequency of integrated circuit components increases the challenge to take advantage of this improved frequency becomes increasingly more difficult. One of the big challenges is to distribute a clock to each of the approximate 18 million latches in the system with minimal skew so that all latches operate synchronously. Two properties of clock distribution that is critical to system performance is: Skew - Time difference in clock signal delivered to any two latches in the entire system. Signal Integrity - The quality of the clock signal delivered to any latch in the system.

© 1995 Optical Society of America