9.2.1.5 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 you use should have a matched differential impedance of about 100Ω. They should not introduce major impedance discontinuities.

Balanced cables (e.g. 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 a common-mode (not differential mode) noise which is 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, is readily available and relatively inexpensive.