Advantage

Series

The
Technology
that Drives
HDMI
Connectivity
HDMI is a complex and ever-evolving
technology that is at the heart of
todays digital entertainment. CE Pros
latest Advantage Series whitepaper
examines what it takes to develop a
reliable and state-of-the-art HDMI
cable.

CE Pro Advantage Series June 2014

The Technology that Drives HDMI Connectivity
2014 EH Publishing

CE Pro Advantage Series: The

Technology that Drives HDMI
Connectivity

DMI is the pipeline for todays high-definition video and audio

content, and this format has changed significantly over the years.
Taking a closer look at the latest version of HDMI, CE Pro digs deep
into HDMI technologies.
Today there are millions of products in the residential and commercial
electronics industries that incorporate HDMI connectivity. In CE Pros
latest Advantage Series whitepaper, learn about the latest technologies that
support the reliable transmission of this now ubiquitous protocol that has
taken the consumer electronics market from the world of analog into the
digital age.
Since its beginnings the HDMI format has evolved with the times. Examining
the latest technologies that support the protocols implementation, CE Pros
newest Advantage Whitepaper looks at how HDMI is engineered to deliver
next-generation entertainment to the masses.

CE Pro Advantage Series June 2014

The Technology that Drives HDMI Connectivity

Table of Contents
The Science Behind Active HDMI Cables: Part 1

HDMI 2.0 has forced many to look at new and current active cable devices,
not only for bandwidth, but also for length and cable size. In the first of a three-
part series, we define the term active HDMI cable and what makes them tick.
by Jeff Boccaccio
1

A Closer Look at HDMI Input Sensitivity and Jitter: Part 2

In the second of a three-part series from CE Pros HDMI Corner, we take a look
at input sensitivity.
By Jeff Boccaccio
3

Put Quality Assurance High on the HDMI Priority List: Part 3

In the final installment of a three-part series from CE Pros HDMI Corner, we

take a look at quality assurance.
By Jeff Boccaccio
6

CE Pro Advantage Series June 2014

The Technology that Drives HDMI Connectivity

ii

The Science Behind Active HDMI

Cables: Part 1
HDMI 2.0 has forced many to look at new and current active cable
devices, not only for bandwidth, but also for length and cable size.
In the first of a three-part series, we define the term active HDMI
cable and what makes them tick. By Jeff Boccaccio

ITH THE INTRODUCTION of HDMIs

new Rev 2.0 and its increased bandwidth, many have focused their
attention searching for new products that
will support this for 2014. It is looking like
the HDMI cable business will become a more
active one. This has forced many firms to
take a closer look at new and current active
cable devices, not only for bandwidth, but
also for length and cable size.
What makes these active products tick? First
lets define the term Active HDMI Cable. It is
an HDMI cable, of just about any length, that
has an active digital equalizer built into the
cable. These devices are placed inside one
of the cable connectors, usually at the sink
end, or molded in the cable itself. The molded
products look like a bulge in the wire where
the circuitry is inserted.
Over the course of time these types of equalizers have been used particularly for long-distance
applications and were manufactured in several stand-alone form factors (extenders). They were
usually built using one of two processing methods known as Pre-Emphasis (Pre-E) and another
called De-Emphasis (De-E). They both kind of do the same thing only differently.
During the early days of HDMI under Revisions 1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 these apparati played a huge
part in getting HDMI cables over the 7-meter length limitation. The chipsets used in these devices
were somewhat large and tended to demand a relatively high amount of supply current, higher
than the 55ma HDMI currently supports, so they came equipped with external power supplies.

CE Pro Advantage Series June 2014

The Technology that Drives HDMI Connectivity

The Science Behind Active HDMI Cables: Part 1

Over time better semiconductors were designed with smaller form factors and improved power
management. These are the chips that you would usually find inside the cable itself making it
active. Not only was this a major achievement by way of its size, but also for the way it handled
its current consumption. As we all know, the HDMI interface uses a 5-volt supply line to support
some electronics in the sink with a relatively tight voltage drop spec of no lower than 4.7 volts.
So you can see with only a 55ma rating, it doesnt take much to kill the lifeblood of HDMI.
Now this is where the story begins to get juicy. There was one company that owned and manufactured this type of chipset, truly one of the best achievements in high-speed cable development supporting the HDMI interface. However since the parts major role was to be used inside
of cables, most of the marketing and exposure of these parts were pretty much under the control
of the cable manufacturers that built them. Yep, you guessed it, in China.
It was introduced as a remedy for long-distance applications, but very little emphasis was placed
on the technological advancements that the semiconductor company achieved. This inevitably
limited the ability for many of the cable manufacturers to take full advantage of this new and
advanced technology.
The semiconductor company was called Redmere, based in Cork, Ireland. It was recently
acquired by Spectra 7 in Palo Alto, Calif. These are the folks who are now spearheading new
cable development for current and future cable products.
When we received the necessary proprietary equipment to analyze the functionality of these
parts in our lab it demonstrated a huge potential unknown to many. Notice, I said parts and not
part. There are different parts for different applications, not to mention the supporting programming attributes required for each active cable.
In addition, there is a science behind these parts; a very deep and complex science that, again in
my opinion, the majority of the cable firms out there did not recognize. I believe that one of the
reasons for that confusion - besides lack of knowledge - among manufacturers was due to the
large focus China took in branding the name Redmere versus informing cable makers about the
potential power and programmability the product line had to offer.
This all became very evident to us as more cable products entered into our labs here at DPL for
testing boasting the fact that they were Redmered! Who cares - we also receive cables for testing that are freeze dried. So whats the difference? Most companies did not even know there
were different parts for different jobs! This all surfaced as some Redmere cable products failed
to meet DPL minimums, not to mention HDMI speci cation also. Was it the Redmere? Hell no, it
was the ignorance of the cable companies. n

CE Pro Advantage Series June 2014

The Technology that Drives HDMI Connectivity

A Closer Look at HDMI Input

Sensitivity and Jitter: Part 2
In the second of a three-part series from CE Pros HDMI
Corner, we take a look at input sensitivity. By Jeff Boccaccio

AST MONTH WE DISCUSSED how,

by pure marketing, integrated circuits
made their way into our HDMI vocabulary with just a companys name as the
identifier: Redmere. However, like any other
decent chip manufacturer, Redmere has
chipsets designed and built withmany different parameters for different applications
including: distance, bandwidth, jitter, cable
construction, power supply, EQ type (Pre-E/
De-E), gain, adaptive versus selective, input
sensitivity and costs.
The one I find pretty interesting is input
sensitivity. Take a look at Fig 1s Eye diagrams. When Eye A enters the cable it is quite robust with amplitude of almost 1 volt PP (Peak
to Peak). By the time it gets to the end losses will appear, primarily due to the cables attenuation shown in Eye B. The eye shrinks to a point where it begins to breach the blue mask polygon.
This is the end of the line for our little data bit because it is beginning to shrink below the masks
noise floor (HDMIs minimums).
These bits will begin to lose their identity of being a logic level 0 or 1. This is when problems
begin such as sparkles and intermittent video. Gauge can play a major role improving this; the
larger the gauge, the larger the cables size gets. But it will get heavy, lose its suppleness, can be
tough to install and in many cases will fall out.
The lower the input sensitivity, the better the part will see low input levels. This input sensitivity sets where the device will begin to function. So if it is high like 300mv, a signal coming out
at 200mv will never be seen by the equalizer because it is lower than the 300mv threshold. The
cable designer not only has to know how much signal is present at the input of the part, but also
how much gain it will take to bring the entire cables performance up to what was specified.

CE Pro Advantage Series June 2014

The Technology that Drives HDMI Connectivity

A Closer Look at HDMI Input Sensitivity and Jitter: Part 2

You can appreciate how critical the performance can be with just two of the many unknowns.
Studies in our lab have proved that at 340MHz over 24 AWG twisted-pair wire the signal starts
breaching the mask polygon as we get over 10 meters in length. This computes to about 10dB,
or about 1dB per meter using 1 volt as Vin and 300mv as Vout. So to correct for losses, we would
need a device that has an input sensitivity of better than 300mv and a gain better than 10dB, and
that just barely makes it.

In this example, if the signal does not make it to the end of the cable above 300mv the part wont
even start. Jitter is another common enemy. Choosing the proper equalization can remove a ton
of jitter and open the signal Eye. A perfect example of this is the use of a De-E (De-Emphasis)
type equalizer.
Fig 2 shows how this works. Fig. 2, picture A is a cycle of data somewhat low in frequency (Blue).
Picture B depicts high frequency data. They look identical, but the green waveform demonstrates
what this high frequency attenuation looks like going down a digital transmission line. Notice it
starts the same, at 0, and climbs up to first logic level 1. On its way down it never reaches 0. It
then climbs back up to the 2nd logic 1.

In picture C, we added De-E. Here we increase the amplitude for only part of the 1st logic level 1
portion of the waveform. The engineer reduces the level halfway down the 1st logic 1 to some
predetermined level. I picked -3,-6, and -9dB. You can see what happened to the green waveform
it has been pulled low, making the transition sweet crossing through the 0 line, establishing a
hard logic level 0. Predicting how low it needs to go determines the gain required by the part in
dB.
So a fair amount of thought has to go into designing a transmission line (cable). The better the
conditioning, the higher the cost for both the part and the build. n

CE Pro Advantage Series June 2014

The Technology that Drives HDMI Connectivity

Put Quality Assurance

High on the HDMI
Priority List: Part 3
In the final installment of a three-part series from CE Pros
HDMI Corner, we take a look at quality assurance. By Jeff
Boccaccio

N THE FIRST PART of our Active Cables series

we discussed how the introduction to this type
of technology was focused primarily on marketing and not the potential power it had with products;
in part two we learned how engineers can potentially
build products with even better performance, longer
distances, more reliability and reduced form factors
not achievable in the passive cable world.
This month in the third and final installment of our
series, we will focus on the actual yield, meaning, what
do we get for our money when it comes to high-performance active cable products? Why such a dynamic
in prices between products? What complicates things
further is when you actually try to investigate these details only to find out there is no one to talk
to, told some marketing talking points, and just as bad, the firm you are purchasing from simply
doesnt know.
Well guess what? They dont have to. Its your neck stuck out there, not theirs. Youre the one that
has to make it work and know everything about the job, and that means the technology and the
transmission lines that go with it.
Products come into our labs all week long for different reasons. Some companies want to be DPL
certified and others just want to check up on what our friends in the Far East are supplying them.
You can imagine how much stuff we see in a week.

CE Pro Advantage Series June 2014

The Technology that Drives HDMI Connectivity

Put Quality Assurance High on the HDMI Priority List: Part 3

One day a product with a very long length comes in for testing attempting to earn a DPL mark.
The cables performance was extraordinary. Clearly, one the best long-distance cables we have
ever tested I almost fell off my chair. But, the cable still failed. It was not due to its actual performance, it was due to some incorrect wiring assignments. Somehow they shipped all five samples with two pairs crossed, causing a timing and phase error problem. No big deal, just reverse
these and youre on your way to a great product.
Months later, they called to inform us that they were ready to launch and asked for another test.
The new samples also failed. Only this time, the failure was not because of the same problem
that we discovered the first time. Instead it was a performance issue for both TMDS and HDCP.
These two features were perfect first time around, so what happened when they turned the two
pairs around? Nothing happened!
It had nothing to do with any of the corrective measures needed to get the cable to work; it wasfar more serious. The product looked the same, felt the same, even the color and packaging was
the same. The difference was the internal electronics. After a careful biopsy of one of the cables
it was discovered that the chip sets had been substituted and were not even close to what was
there the first time around. The first had a $4 set and the second a $0.97 set.
Now in some cases this product may have worked in the field on limited 1080p systems, but even
that was a stretch. To add insult to injury, the manufacturer had thousands of these coming over
all the advertising, all the promotions, all of the excitement went into the toilet. Fortunately this
particular company has high ethical standards. There was no way they were going to sell these.
The product was eventually returned to the Far East and replaced with the correct order, causing
a three-month delay in sales.
So we are now beginning to see some companies follow all the rules. Theyre spending tons of
cash on R&D with great strides in developing the right mix of silicon, wire and design to manufacture high-performance cable products. But all that means nothing unless there is some hard-core
quality assurance at the end of the line. The talent and equipment used for testing is how this
was discovered. Few companies have these resources; it is just not cost effective.
Here is an important part that needs consideration: It is going to get harder as the interface
expands. There will be many new challenges as new revisions come in. We dont have the luxury
of counting on brand recognition as we did in years past. Most of these types of products are
made in the Far East and it is the responsibility of each manufacturer to establish its own QA program with its Far East partners. If they dont, then you do. The technology will continue moving
fast and we will continue to provide the knowledge, but you must learn it too. n

CE Pro Advantage Series June 2014

The Technology that Drives HDMI Connectivity

CE Pro Advantage Series:

The Technology that
Drives HDMI Connectivity
This Advantage Series from CE Pro is one of many free resources
coming soon to cepro.com.
Download other useful guides, including:
n Installation Series
n Research Series
n Business Series
For more papers, visit cepro.com/whitepaper/all
or visit www.cepro.com for more free resources.

CE Pro Advantage Series June 2014

The Technology that Drives HDMI Connectivity