Patent ID: 8643405
Filing Date: 2014-02-04
Classification: G01R,H03K

Abstract:
1. A passive capture adapter (PCA) circuit comprising: a differentiator coupled to a dual-slope comparator/driver, the differentiator configured as a high impedance probe to sense and capture an input signal waveform, the differentiator having a high-pass time constant configured to sense edges of the input signal waveform, the dual-slope comparator/driver configured to respond to the edges to drive differential signal pairs over a dual-pair interconnect cable connected to the dual-slope comparator/driver, wherein the differentiator includes a first capacitor coupled to a first plurality of resistors to form a high-pass filter with a cut-off frequency substantially higher than a fundamental frequency of the input signal waveform; and a differential receiver/shaper connected between the dual-pair interconnect cable and a signal restorer, the differential receiver/shaper configured to convert the differential signal pairs to single-ended signals that are received by the signal restorer, the signal restorer configured to respond to the single-ended signals to reconstruct the edges of the input signal waveform and deliver output signals that are fed as input signals to a driver/shaper, the driver/shaper configured to combine the input signals to produce a digital signal substantially similar to the input signal waveform.