TSP #9 - Tutorial on Passive Filters, Data Transmission and Equalization

In this episode Shahriar explores the world of filters! Starting from a simple lumped RC filter, he briefly covers the theory before moving onto measurement techniques. The bandwidth of the filter is verified experimentally in the time domain. A more complex RLC band-stop filter is also demonstrated with a tune-able inductor which is measured using an RLC meter. Using a Rigol spectrum analyzer with built in tracking generator and an active probe, the frequency response of the filter is measured. Several other packaged filters are also demonstrated and a microwave band-pass filter is disassembled to reveal its internal construction.
Moving onto "undesired filters", a Tyco backplane board is presented and the bandwidth limitation of the backplane traces are measured. A Xilinx FPGA board equipped with a Vertex II PRO is used to generate a 1.5Gbps PRBS data stream through the Tyco board. After observing the frequency composition of the date, pre-emphasis equalization is used to compensate the backplane frequency limitations. Eye diagram measurements verify the benefit of pre-emphasis equalization to combat inter-symbol-interference (ISI).
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[@Thesignalpath]

Thanks for the kind comments! Ph.D EE, 30 years old. My advice would be, read, experiment and wonder! It is one thing to know what (for example) what FFT is. But nothing drives home the idea better than taking a signal and looking at it on a spectrum analyzer. I know that not everyone would have the opportunity to do this experiment. This is the main driving force for me to create these videos.

[@ChrisYSmithY]

Good Quality video

[@thearithmos3408]

HEY🤗🤗, thanks for making such an informative video. I was wondering what book would you recommend about electronics ? (I'm an electronics engineering student)

[@Lwyte17]

I'm returning to school for an EE degree at 28 after many life problems, and I hope I can find a path in RF Engineering after because it's just incredibly fascinating to me. Watching your videos always gives me motivation to keep working towards my goal, and maybe one day I can be at your level. Thanks for all your amazing content and knowledge, the world needs more teachers and people like you sharing what they know.

[@alextrofimov7947]

Hi Shahriar! I think that the amount of details is just ideal for a 1 hr video.) Thank you so much for the knowledge you shared. )

[@ntoobe]

Why was the wine evaporating from the glass during the experiment?

[@surenets]

Absolutely love your videos. I hope you still get the feedback from these that are 2+ years old. I've been watching many of the newer ones too - keep up this incredible work.

[@PedroMariz88]

Man, was the more helpful hour that I spent in KZbin. Thanks a lot.

[@Nermash]

I am very glad to see you back, and it is an impressive comeback:) I really enjoyed watching this. Nothing beats high speed digital propagation experiments involving cool new gear:)))

[@hla27b]

Shahriar your videos show exactly what is impossible to show in a textbook. Being an amateur, this is the most comprehensive introduction to high frequency electronics that I ever had. Now I know much better what the textbooks were trying to tell me. Besides, I enjoy a glass of wine on my workbench too. Prosit!

[@PelDaddy]

Nice video. I love the way you always refer to tools and instruments, and your tests as experiments. This is very precise, and much appreciated. I love your channel. Thanks!

[@jaylav1125]

Great video! I am new to electronics design but everything you talked about made perfect sense. To take subject matter like this and make it easy to understand is a fantastic gift!

[@mevmevmev]

Exactly. I finally got a spectrum analyzer after years of wanting one. Seeing theory applied to real experiments seems to be exactly what I need to retain the ideas and clarify what I try to learn from reading. These videos are great.

[@Bekele2020]

Gracias Shahriar, thank you for share with us your knowledges and teaching habilities. I look forward keep learning from you.

[@davidbeauchesne7399]

This was the first video that I viewed from TheSignalPathBlog and it was great! I will be watching many more. Thank you very much!

[@matthollandsf]

super cool to see the inside of the microwave filter. awesome demo at the end.

[@x86cowboy]

Best hour I've spent on youtube. Thanks very much. This is very interesting. I hope you make more cool videos like this. From very simple RC circuits to real-world applications is an excellent method of teaching.

[@KeenanTims]

Great video, good to see some pretty advanced topics coming up, even if just peripherally. Very cool stuff, and the future work you're talking about sounds very interesting as well. Thanks!

[@msk19991]

That was simply OUTSTANDING, many many thanks for the effort & time spent on your tutorials Best wishes

[@odaialdawoud8681]

Thank you for your videos. 8 years later, you've impacted another individual and hopefully these videos keep making contributions to people's lives :)

[@TheCondoInRedondo]

Really, really appreciate your work on this one in particular. My schooling was back in the early '70s. We didn't have these tools. Nor did we have these bandwidth challenges.

[@JetNmyFuture]

I have been going back and watching many of the older videos to review. These videos expose holes in my understanding and encourage me to self-educate as well as go back to school to finish my degree in EE. It is actually quite a bit of fun to watch these after some time time has past and realize that I understand much more of it, but also realize that there are many more details (never ending) to be learned. Love these, the biggest lesson is for me is learning what to learn next.

[@mrstijntje]

Very clear and entertaining video to watch. It has become clear to me once again what's the value of good equipment. Had never heard of this 'eye' measure thing before but the way it works looks really logical. Thumbs up!

[@PodeCoet]

Excellent work! We just learnt about this at college, great to see it all in practice

[@Thesignalpath]

@chromebeats The earlier videos use an animated intro sequence. The later videos use a screen-capture clip. I was experimenting with the camera and noticed the screen-capture creates an interesting halo, so I decided to keep it. No mystery or weirdness.

[@joes5669]

I love your approach for the eye diagram explanation in this video; top notch sir!

[@RandyLott]

That was incredible! I've never seen a machined filter and always wondered what they looked like!

[@nathanas64]

Great series and a great educational contribution !! Thank you!

[@KB4QAA]

Super class! First of you series I have seen. I have radio IF filters to align and thiso and this gives me a better understanding of how to use my spectrum analyzer functions. I also need to build a notch/bandstop filter for block broadcast FM stations. thanks, Bill

[@billysdomain]

Awesome video couldnt take my eyes off it, love the detail in how to properly connect DUT

[@octavmandru9219]

excellent. I have to re-watch it a couple of times in order to fully understand how the theory applies but this is by far the best tutorial on filters I have seen. Thank you for your involvement and effort to educate the community

[@lazerusmfh]

As an Wireless engineer, this video was just, cool. I am jealous of the instruments. I very much enjoyed, even the more advanced topics you have shown. I really liked the insight to signal integrity when you do Frequency domain experiments. These things are especially true when using highly modulated signals, very cool!

[@trickyrat483]

Great video, as usual. Thank you so much. Learning so much from your videos - working my way through all of them. :)

[@ender1296]

very interesting as I now have a friend with a spectrum analyser and should be using it on my self built sdr. Will be interesting to see the filter responses. Thank you very much for this detailed video.

[@mustafamuhammed9066]

You're wonderful. Keep making those videos .Real Nice Work!

[@mikeissweet]

Fantastic! I just learned a ton, thank you! You made this surprisingly easy to follow.

[@igoronline]

That microwave band-pass filter totally blew my mind.

[@manse990]

Love the videos..as an out of work Engineering Tech it helps me keeps my skills and the equipment understanding fresh....i love to have access to all the gear especially the sequencer and the o-scope....please add as many equipment tutorials as possible....thanks

[@patricksaladino]

Thank you for the time and effort put in this very interesting video !

[@tahmad20]

Awesome tutorial. Thanks Shahriar.

[@ajairaj9624]

Best video ever. Love it :)

[@jokeshii]

Great video of practical aspects of the filter.....For fist time viewers like me... it very impressive.

[@Vahidutube]

Khasteh nabaushy agha Shariar. That was very great. Please keep doing good work. Thanks. Vahid.

[@FRRRRAAANNK]

Great video. Thank you very much.

[@DAVET38]

A very useful video. I found it most interesting and informative. Thank you.

[@13isp]

Very well done, great contribution!

[@timthompson468]

Excellent video. A lot of good practical information. Lucky for me, I don’t work anywhere close to those frequencies, so my equipment and components are much less expensive. A lot of the concepts still apply.

[@dr.med.schlomov.aschkenasy842]

A wonderful video. I learned tons. Thank you so much!!

[@etothejtheta]

These are great! Keep them coming.

[@billmoran3812]

Love the tutorial. Very good content.

[@iftikharabid659]

You are really doing a great job. Keep it up !

[@oncho1960]

this was excellent...thank you so much for doing this!!!

[@vvk1985]

Very nice delivery with extensive details. Thanks for your efforts and hard work to put all this together. Would be interesting to see spectrum analyzer plots (eye-diagram by default) when data is passing through 60' trace and the effects of Tx side pre-emphasis, de-emphasis and attenuation if possible with a BW of 10G+. Looking forward for next video on the Equalization.

[@TimHavens]

VERY WELL DONE! Thank so much! I'll be sure to checkout more of your work. Tim

[@mrmega328]

Good video, I liked that lots of things were shown and explained (most of which I never have been before)

[@wooosaiiii]

Shahriar great video :) and I have to say you have a really nice lab equipment... keep up with good work and inspired videos... ^^ Great to have you back afer a while... xD

[@yoorikbarkhordarian4946]

Great job every thing was clear understanding Thank you.

[@Matthias051]

Thank you so much for this interesting video. I wish it would be even longer! :-) More details please

[@josepaul2000]

Brilliant video.

[@belochka81]

you got the gift. Thanks

[@MrDuden]

really nice video, everything was clearly explained. thanks for your effort

[@Soulflayar]

This is just amazing, I feel I learned so much from this and its only 1 hour O_O tyvm for this

[@user-dq1si2jm2l]

Really informative. Keep it up!

[@mfbayramoglu]

inspirational video. thanks.

[@matiasvdtube]

Great video. Thanks for sharing.

[@kevinxbuffalo]

Great video! Keep it up!

[@Thesignalpath]

My expertise is in mm-wave integrated circuits, specifically for wireless and optoelectronic wireline applications.

[@viccourageous]

Thanks for the advice keep up the good work

[@FUNKLABOR_DL1LEP]

Very Impressive!

[@permitivitym4318]

its very informative specially for people like us who don't usually have the opportunity to deal with these kind of stuff

[@chilldog1234567890]

good work explaining the per-emphasis.

[@AnthonyCRoberts]

Top notch. Thank you.

[@amikhimji]

Great video thanks

[@nihran123]

Excellent, keep it up.

[@Thesignalpath]

@MrMac5150 THANK YOU! YOU ARE TOO KIND!

[@mdesm2005]

Great video, thanks.

[@MantisRay861]

Very informative!

[@gingsSon]

Excellent video sir

[@bubbleslaboratory]

Great job! keep it up

[@bbman_01]

great video

[@Photonface]

Excellent vid

[@AxelWerner]

AWESOME!

[@Thesignalpath]

@LegionForTheLulz Thanks!

[@ghlscitel6714]

Drooling!

[@skyhighhigh9999]

superb!

[@tiredfingers99]

Thanks for a great video. Could the transmission line traces on the circuit boards be improved if they had a ground right under on the unintentional filter board? That ground trace would have to follow the trace the whole way I would assume.

[@KirkOfBellevue]

I liked it. Thank you

[@azzy314159]

Actually One can see that the piece of iron causes the inductance to fall. Your lecture was Excellent. Thanks

[@Thesignalpath]

@Plutonion2 Oh boy, that WOULD be a challenge!

[@KX36]

Do you know which Rigol scopes display the phase difference between 2 channels? Do the 2000 or 4000 series ones do that?

[@viccourageous]

I cant help but notice your in depth knowledge, i also seek to have a in depth understanding of electronics and related fields. Can you share your education, experience, age, and things you used to help you gain such a firm grasp of this field.Thank You

[@wa4aos]

Hi, Very good video thanks. I am considering the purchase of a Rigol SA since my very nice HP 8566 SA does not have a tracking gen. I was wondering if you have compared the Rigo to HP SA's with regard to filter sweeps. In particular from 455KHz to 6MHz.? The Rigol certainly looks good for the money. Again, thanks for the well done video. Regards, Glenn

[@FrancoisRusse]

Thanks! Great video! It would be cool if you show regular probe's result after active probe's measurements.

[@Plutonion2]

Good video .Was interesting looking in that filter.I thought they where discreet l,c,r in them .I didn't know there was only cavities and tubes in those microwave ones (but the one you showed was quite a low frequency filter).I bet you could mod these by cutting the tubes to produce your own filter characteristics if you like a real challenge.lol .

[@georgelewisray]

Thanks many/much !!! - - - I was getting a bit lost towards the end so perhaps you could add some pre-emphasis to your teaching style and so open up my eyes and move more data thru the channel . . . . : ) , really great what you do.

[@razean22]

finally a new video \o/

[@Inspironator]

To me, I understand how the path degrades the pass band, but it is more interesting to understan how the pre-emphasis can gradually increase the gain with frequency, as opposed to the much more extreme rolloff of a one pole filter. So, another idea for a follow-on video.

[@westin1985]

What's the best way to test computers for RF emissions? Could you use a spectrum analyzer to locate the RF frequencies that are the strongest? How would you do it? How would you analyze a motherboard to see what it's RF emissions are? I am looking for a PC or laptop that has been designed to minimize the RF emissions?

[@olepetter7038]

Very very useful, thank you! It would be very interresting if you could do a followup on how (if) the typical hobbyist could approximate you measurements without a spectrum analyser (which at least in my case is outside the budget). I.e. function-generator plus DSO with FFT?

[@karlmozey1412]

yo flicking awesome am telling,cool tut ma niga,I real love this

[@MrMac5150]

YOU DID A GREAT JOB AND SHOULD BE A TEACHER YOU WENT THREW THE STEPS AT JUST THE RIGHT SPEED A LITTLE ADVANCE FOR BEGINNERS CLASS AA JOB THANKS

[@stargazer7644]

Great video, but you skipped over the most important bit of equipment. What kind of wine was it? :)

[@4S7CRA]

Thank you for the knowledge you shared. Its great opportunity for me can't get higher education due to limit in universities in my country