Ground and VCC Bounce of High-

Ground and VCC Bounce of High-Speed Integrated Circuits

The purpose of this paper is to give a general

descripTIon of what ground and VCC bounce

are, why it is they are tested, and a detailed

descripTIon of how they are tested.

WHY SHOULD GROUND AND VCC

BOUNCE BE TESTED?

Ground and VCC bounce tesTIng is done to

evaluate what effect switching more than one

output simultaneously has on the

performance of the integrated circuit. This

effect becomes important in any

high-performance line of circuits because the

propagaTIon delays and output edge rates are

very fast. This can cause ground bounce and

VCC bounce, described as Voltage Output

Low Peak (VOLP) and Voltage Output High

Valley (VOHV), respectively.

Fast edge rates of the output drivers can

team up with internal parasitic lead

inductance and the output load to produce

unwanted side effects of noise on the

outputs. This noise or ringing will occur on

both a static and a switching output. This

ringing can be substantial enough to cross

the input triggering threshold of a subsequent

device, which in turn can cause a system to

perform unpredictably and unreliably.