Patent ID: 7593824

Claim:
A computerized method for determining termination characteristics associated with a connection between a signal driver of a first chip on a printed circuit board and a signal receiver of a second chip on the printed circuit board, at least one of the first and second chips comprising one or more of a software programmable resistor and a software programmable capacitor coupled to the connection, the method comprising: (a) determining one or more possible values for at least one of the programmable resistor and the programmable capacitor; (b) selecting one of the determined possible values for the at least one of the programmable resistor and the programmable capacitor; (c) transmitting a first signal to the at least one of the programmable resistor and the programmable capacitor coupled to the connection, the signal configured to initiate adjustment of at least one of a resistance value of the programmable resistor and a capacitor value of the programmable capacitor to the selected one of the determined possible values; (d) transmitting a second signal to the first chip, initiating output of a test signal having a known value from the signal driver to the signal receiver; (e) receiving a third signal from a component on the printed circuit board indicating a received value of the test signal received by the signal receiver of the second chip; (f) determining a signal integrity of the test signal based at least partly on a difference between the known value of the transmitted test signal and the received value of the test signal; (g) repeating steps (b)-(e) for at least some of the determined possible values; and (h) determining values for at least one of the programmable resistor and the programmable capacitor based at least on a comparison of the determined signal integrities associated with respective possible values of at least one of the programmable resistor and the programmable capacitor.