A system for a backplane that employs i) an adjustment of positive-to-negative (P-N) driver skew of a transmit signal of a relatively high-speed differential driver to reduce far-end crosstalk, ii) a high-speed differential subtraction circuit combining a gain-adjusted replica of at least one transmit signal with a received signal to reduce near-end crosstalk, and iii) a phase-locked loop (PLL) synchronization circuit to align timing events between a set of near-end and far-end high-speed interfaces.