Analysis of the transient response of a dual-fed RC transmission line

The transient analysis of a uniform transmission line of finite length is considered in this paper. For the first time this paper provides an analytical expression for the time-domain response of an RC transmission line, which is stimulated by a step function that is fed into both ends of the transmission line. In particular, we find an analytical expression for the step response at the center of the transmission line, in order to determine the worst-case rise time. This is of interest, for example, in large charge-coupled device (CCD) arrays, where long polysilicon lines are dual-fed in order to mitigate degradation in rise time. The analytical expressions for the RC transmission line are supported by computer-simulated lumped RC models.