As shown earlier, an LVDS communication channel employs a current source driving a transmission line which is terminated with a resistive load. This load serves to convert the transmitted current into a voltage at the receiver input. To ensure incident wave switching (which is necessary to operate the channel at the highest signaling rate), the termination resistance should be matched to the characteristic impedance of the transmission line. The designer should ensure that the termination resistance is within 10% of the nominal media characteristic impedance. If the transmission line is targeted for 100-Ω impedance, the termination resistance should be between 90 and 110 Ω.

The line termination resistance should be located as close as possible to the receiver, thereby minimizing the stub length from the resistor to the receiver. The limiting case would be to incorporate the termination resistor into the receiver, which is exactly what is offered with a device like the SN65LVDT386. The SN65LVDT386 provides all the functionality and performance of the SN65LVDT386 receiver, with the added feature of an integrated termination load.

While we talk in this section about point-to-point communications, a word of caution is useful when a multidrop topology is used. In such topologies, line termination resistors are to be located only at the end(s) of the transmission line. In such an environment, SN65LVDT386 receivers could be used for loads branching off the main bus with an SN65LVDT386 used only at the bus end.