Patent ID: 7564694

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a printed circuit board having a front side and a back side, and having therein a plurality of conductive layers, at least one of the conductive layers including first and second signal channels to carry a differential signal pair of a server blade, the printed circuit board to provide a backplane for the server blade; first and second stubs, each of the first stub and the second stub having a length extending from a respective front end of the each stub at the front side through the printed circuit board to a respective back end of the each stub at the back side, the first stub being electrically coupled to the first signal channel and the second stub being electrically coupled to the second signal channel; a socket coupled to the front side of the printed circuit board, the socket to receive the server blade, wherein the received server blade is electrically coupled to the first and second stubs at the respective front ends of the first and second stubs to provide a respective signal of the differential signal pair to each of the first and second stubs; and a first impedance matching terminal and a second impedance matching terminal, each of the first and second impedance matching terminals electrically coupled to a respective one of the first and second stubs at a respective one of the back ends of the first and second stubs, each of the first and second impedance matching terminals further electrically coupled to a ground, each of the first and second impedance matching terminals to reduce a reflection of a portion of the respective provided signal at the respective back end of one of the first and second stubs.