8.3.5 Cables and Connectors, General Comments
When choosing cable and connectors for LVDS, it is important to remember:
- Use controlled impedance media. The cables and connectors used should have a matched differential impedance of about 100 Ω. They should not introduce major impedance discontinuities.
- Balanced cables (that is, twisted-pair) are usually better than unbalanced cables (ribbon cable, simple coax) for noise reduction and signal quality. Balanced cables tend to generate less EMI due to field canceling effects and also tend to pick up electromagnetic radiation and common-mode (not differential mode) noise rejected by the receiver.
- For cable distances < 0.5 M, most cables can be made to work effectively. For distances 0.5 M ≤ d ≤ 10 M, CAT 3 (category 3) twisted-pair cable works well, and this cable is readily available and relatively inexpensive.