Phase and amplitude pre-emphasis techniques for low-power serial links

A novel approach to equalization of high-speed serial links combines both amplitude pre-emphasis to correct for intersymbol interference and phase pre-emphasis to compensate for deterministic jitter, in particular, data-dependent jitter. Phase pre-emphasis augments the performance of low power transmitters in bandwidth-limited channels. The transmitter circuit is implemented in a 90-nm bulk CMOS process and reduces power consumption by pushing CMOS static logic to the output stage, a 4:1 output multiplexer. The received signal jitter over a cable is reduced from 16.15 ps to 10.29 ps with only phase pre-emphasis at the transmitter. The jitter is reduced by 3.6 ps over an FR-4 backplane interconnect. A transmitter without phase pre-emphasis consumes 18 mW of power at 6Gb/s and 600mVpp output swing, a power budget of 3mW/Gb/s, while a transmitter with phase pre-emphasis consumes 24mW, a budget of 4 mW/Gb/s

Analysis and equalization of data-dependent jitter

Data-dependent jitter limits the bit-error rate (BER) performance of broadband communication systems and aggravates synchronization in phase- and delay-locked loops used for data recovery. A method for calculating the data-dependent jitter in broadband systems from the pulse response is discussed. The impact of jitter on conventional clock and data recovery circuits is studied in the time and frequency domain. The deterministic nature of data-dependent jitter suggests equalization techniques suitable for high-speed circuits. Two equalizer circuit implementations are presented. The first is a SiGe clock and data recovery circuit modified to incorporate a deterministic jitter equalizer. This circuit demonstrates the reduction of jitter in the recovered clock. The second circuit is a MOS implementation of a jitter equalizer with independent control of the rising and falling edge timing. This equalizer demonstrates improvement of the timing margins that achieve 10/sup -12/ BER from 30 to 52 ps at 10 Gb/s

A 10-Gb/s two-dimensional eye-opening monitor in 0.13-μm standard CMOS

An eye-opening monitor (EOM) architecture that can capture a two-dimensional (2-D) map of the eye diagram of a high-speed data signal has been developed. Two single-quadrant phase rotators and one digital-to-analog converter (DAC) are used to generate rectangular masks with variable sizes and aspect ratios. Each mask is overlapped with the received eye diagram and the number of signal transitions inside the mask is recorded as error. The combination of rectangular masks with the same error creates error contours that overall provide a 2-D map of the eye. The authors have implemented a prototype circuit in 0.13-μm standard CMOS technology that operates up to 12.5 Gb/s at 1.2-V supply. The EOM maps the input eye to a 2-D error diagram with up to 68-dB mask error dynamic range. The left and right halves of the eyes are monitored separately to capture horizontally asymmetric eyes. The chip consumes 330 mW and operates reliably with supply voltages as low as 1 V at 10 Gb/s. The authors also present a detailed analysis that verifies if the measurements are in good agreement with the expected results

오프셋 제거기의 적응 제어 등화기와 보우-레이트 위상 검출기를 활용한 수신기 설계

학위논문(박사) -- 서울대학교대학원 : 공과대학 전기·정보공학부, 2021.8. 염제완.In this thesis, designs of high-speed, low-power wireline receivers (RX) are explained. To be specific, the circuit techniques of DC offset cancellation, merged-summer DFE, stochastic Baud-rate CDR, and the phase detector (PD) for multi-level signal are proposed. At first, an RX with adaptive offset cancellation (AOC) and merged summer decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) is proposed. The proposed AOC engine removes the random DC offset of the data path by examining the random data stream's sampled data and edge outputs. In addition, the proposed RX incorporates a shared-summer DFE in a half-rate structure to reduce power dissipation and hardware complexity of the adaptive equalizer. A prototype chip fabricated in 40 nm CMOS technology occupies an active area of 0.083 mm2. Thanks to the AOC engine, the proposed RX achieves the BER of less than 10-12 in a wide range of data rates: 1.62-10 Gb/s. The proposed RX consumes 18.6 mW at 10 Gb/s over a channel with a 27 dB loss at 5 GHz, exhibiting a figure-of-merit of 0.068 pJ/b/dB. Secondly, a 40 nm CMOS RX with Baud-rate phase-detector (BRPD) is proposed. The RX includes two PDs: the BRPD employing the stochastic technique and the BRPD suitable for multi-level signals. Thanks to the Baud-rate CDR’s advantage, by not using an edge-sampling clock, the proposed CDR can reduce the power consumption by lowering the hardware complexity. Besides, the proposed stochastic phase detector (SPD) tracks an optimal phase-locking point that maximizes the vertical eye opening. Furthermore, despite residual inter-symbol interference, proposed BRPD for multi-level signal secures vertical eye margin, which is especially vulnerable in the multi-level signal. Besides, the proposed BRPD has a unique lock point with an adaptive DFE, unlike conventional Mueller-Muller PD. A prototype chip fabricated in 40 nm CMOS technology occupies an active area of 0.24 mm2. The proposed PAM-4 RX achieves the bit-error-rate less than 10-11 in 48 Gb/s and the power efficiency of 2.42 pJ/b.본 논문은 고속, 저전력으로 동작하는 유선 수신기의 설계에 대해 설명하고 있다. 구체적으로 말하면, 오프셋 상쇄, 병합된 서머를 사용하는 결정 피드백 등화기 기술, 확률적 보우 레이트 클럭과 데이터 복원기, 그리고 다중 레벨 신호에 적합한 위상 검출기를 제안한다. 첫째로, 적응 오프셋 제거 및 병합된 서머를 사용하는 결정 피드백 등화기를 갖춘 수신기를 제안한다. 제안된 적응 오프셋 제거 엔진은 임의의 데이터 스트림의 샘플링 데이터, 에지 출력을 검사하여 데이터 경로 상의 오프셋을 제거한다. 또한 하프 레이트 구조의 병합된 서머를 사용하는 결정 피드백 등화기는 전력의 사용과 하드웨어의 복잡성을 줄인다. 40 nm CMOS 기술로 제작된 프로토타입 칩은 0.083 mm2 의 면적을 가진다. 적응 오프셋 제거기 덕분에 제안된 수신기는 10-12 미만의 BER을 달성한다. 또한 제안된 수신기는 5GHz에서 27 dB의 로스를 갖는 채널에서 10 Gb/s의 속도에서 18.6 mW를 소비하며 0.068 pJ/b/dB의 FoM을 달성하였다. 두번째로, 보우 레이트 위상 검출기가 있는 40 nm CMOS 수신기가 제안되었다. 수신기에는 두개의 보우 레이트 위상 검출기를 포함한다. 하나는 확률론적 기법을 사용하는 보우 레이트 위상 검출기이다. 보우 레이트 클럭 데이터 복원기의 장점 덕분에 에지 샘플링 클럭을 사용하지 않음으로서 파워의 소모와 하드웨어의 복잡성을 줄였다. 또한 확률적 위상 검출기는 수직 아이 오프닝을 최대화하는 최적의 위상 지점을 찾을 수 있었다. 다른 위상 검출기는 다중 레벨 신호에 적합한 방식이다. 심볼 간 간섭이 다중 레벨 신호에 매우 취약한 문제가 있더라도 제안된 다중 레벨 신호용 보우 레이트 위상 검출기는 수직 아이 마진을 확보한다. 게다가 제안된 보우 레이트 위상 검출기는 기존의 뮬러-뮐러 위상 검출기와 달리 적응형 결정 피드백 등화기가 있더라도 유일한 락 지점을 갖는다. 프로토타입 칩은 0.24mm2의 면적을 가진다. 제안된 PAM-4 수신기는 48 Gb/s의 속도에서 10-11 미만의 BER을 가지고, 2.42 pJ/b의 FoM을 가진다.CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 MOTIVATION 1 1.2 THESIS ORGANIZATION 5 CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUNDS 6 2.1 BASIC ARCHITECTURE IN SERIAL LINK 6 2.1.1 SERIAL COMMUNICATION 6 2.1.2 CLOCK AND DATA RECOVERY 8 2.1.3 MULTI-LEVEL PULSE-AMPLITUDE MODULATION 10 2.2 EQUALIZER 12 2.2.1 EQUALIZER OVERVIEW 12 2.2.2 DECISION-FEEDBACK EQUALIZER 15 2.2.3 ADAPTIVE EQUALIZER 18 2.3 CLOCK RECOVERY 21 2.3.1 2X OVERSAMPLING PD ALEXANDER PD 22 2.3.2 BAUD-RATE PD MUELLER MULLER PD 25 CHAPTER 3 AN ADAPTIVE OFFSET CANCELLATION SCHEME AND SHARED SUMMER ADAPTIVE DFE 28 3.1 OVERVIEW 28 3.2 AN ADAPTIVE OFFSET CANCELLATION SCHEME AND SHARED-SUMMER ADAPTIVE DFE FOR LOW POWER RECEIVER 31 3.3 SHARED SUMMER DFE 37 3.4 RECEIVER IMPLEMENTATION 42 3.5 MEASUREMENT RESULTS 45 CHAPTER 4 PAM-4 BAUD-RATE DIGITAL CDR 51 4.1 OVERVIEW 51 4.2 OVERALL ARCHITECTURE 53 4.2.1 PROPOSED BAUD-RATE CDR ARCHITECTURE 53 4.2.2 PROPOSED ANALOG FRONT-END STRUCTURE 59 4.3 STOCHASTIC PHASE DETECTION PAM-4 CDR 64 4.3.1 PROPOSED STOCHASTIC PHASE DETECTION 64 4.3.2 COMPARISON OF THE STOCHASTIC PD WITH SS-MMPD 70 4.4 PHASE DETECTION FOR MULTI-LEVEL SIGNALING 73 4.4.1 PROPOSED BAUD-RATE PHASE DETECTOR FOR MULTI-LEVEL SIGNAL 73 4.4.2 DATA LEVEL AND DFE COEFFICIENT ADAPTATION 79 4.4.3 PROPOSED PHASE DETECTOR 84 4.5 MEASUREMENT RESULT 88 4.5.1 MEASUREMENT OF THE PROPOSED STOCHASTIC BAUD-RATE PHASE DETECTION 94 4.5.2 MEASUREMENT OF THE PROPOSED BAUD-RATE PHASE DETECTION FOR MULTI-LEVEL SIGNAL 97 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 103 BIBLIOGRAPHY 105 초 록 109박

A 90 nm CMOS 16 Gb/s Transceiver for Optical Interconnects

Interconnect architectures which leverage high-bandwidth optical channels offer a promising solution to address the increasing chip-to-chip I/O bandwidth demands. This paper describes a dense, high-speed, and low-power CMOS optical interconnect transceiver architecture. Vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) data rate is extended for a given average current and corresponding reliability level with a four-tap current summing FIR transmitter. A low-voltage integrating and double-sampling optical receiver front-end provides adequate sensitivity in a power efficient manner by avoiding linear high-gain elements common in conventional transimpedance-amplifier (TIA) receivers. Clock recovery is performed with a dual-loop architecture which employs baud-rate phase detection and feedback interpolation to achieve reduced power consumption, while high-precision phase spacing is ensured at both the transmitter and receiver through adjustable delay clock buffers. A prototype chip fabricated in 1 V 90 nm CMOS achieves 16 Gb/s operation while consuming 129 mW and occupying 0.105 mm^2

Design of High-Speed Power-Efficient Transmitter with Time-Based Equalization

본 논문은 고속, 저전력으로 동작하는 유선 송신기의 설계에 대해 설명하고 있다. 분리되지 않은 출력 드라이버가 있는 에너지 효율적인 전압 모드 송신기는 위상 지연 분석을 기반으로 시간 영역에서 채널 손실을 보상한다. 직렬화된 데이터 스트림이 아닌 송신 클럭의 위상을 변조함으로써 제안된 송신기는 데이터 의존적 지터를 크게 줄인다. 수평 아이 오프닝은 전송된 데이터의 실행 길이에 따라 제로 크로싱 시간 변동을 보상함으로써 개선된다. 제안된 방식은 큰 신호 및 스위칭 전력을 소비하는 많은 드라이버 슬라이스를 제거함으로써 드라이버 복잡성을 크게 줄인다. 프로토타입 칩은 28 nm CMOS 공정으로 제작되었으며 0.045 mm2 의 실제 면적을 차지한다. 측정된 결과는 제안된 송신기가 1.0 V 공급에서 440 mVppd의 출력 스윙으로 22 Gb/s의 속도에서 0.95 pJ/b의 에너지 효율을 달성함을 보여준다. 또한 피크 대 피크 지터는 15.0 dB 손실의 채널에 대해 제안된 위상 지연 보상을 통해 22 Gb/s의 속도에서 34 ps에서 20 ps로 감소된다.In this thesis, a design of high-speed, power-efficient wireline transmitter is reported. An energy-efficient voltage-mode transmitter with an un-segmented output driver equalizes channel loss in the time-domain based on the phase de-lay analysis. By modulating the phase of the transmitting clock rather than the serialized data stream, the proposed transmitter significantly reduces the data-dependent jitter. The horizontal eye-opening is improved by compensating for the zero-crossing time variation dependent on the run-length of the transmitted data. The proposed scheme significantly reduces the driver complexity by elim-inating many driver slices that consume significant signaling and switching power. The prototype chip has been fabricated in a 28-nm CMOS process and occupies an active area of 0.045 mm2. The measured results show that the pro-posed transmitter achieves an energy efficiency of 0.95 pJ/b at 22 Gb/s with an output swing of 440 mVppd at 1.0 V supply. In addition, peak-to-peak jitter is reduced from 34 ps to 20 ps at 22 Gb/s with the proposed phase delay compen-sation over the channel with a 15.0 dB loss.CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 MOTIVATION 1 1.2 THESIS ORGANIZATION 4 CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUNDS 5 2.1 OVERVIEW 5 2.2 FEED-FORWARD EQUALIZATION 7 2.2.1 AMPLITUDE-DOMAIN EQUALIZATION 7 2.2.2 PHASE-DOMAIN EQUALIZATION 12 2.2.3 PULSE-WIDTH MODULATION 18 2.3 ADAPTIVE FEED-FORWARD EQUALIZATION 21 2.3.1 AMPLITUDE-DOMAIN EQUALIZATION 21 2.3.2 PULSE-WIDTH MODULATION 24 CHAPTER 3 DESIGN OF THE TIME-BASED FEED-FORWARD EQUALIZATION OF THE TRANSMITTER 26 3.1 OVERVIEW 26 3.2 BASIC CONCEPT OF TIME-BASED FFE 28 3.2.1 ZERO-CROSSING TIME 28 3.2.2 PHASE DELAY 32 3.2.3 FINDING THE OPTIMUM COEFFICIENT 39 3.2.4 COMPARISON WITH CONVENTIONAL FFE 43 3.3 ADAPTIVE TIME-BASED FFE 50 3.3.1 OVERVIEW 50 3.3.2 BEHAVIORAL MODELING 51 3.3.3 SIMULATION RESULTS 53 3.4 TRANSMITTER IMPLEMENTATION 60 3.4.1 OVERVIEW 60 3.4.2 PHASE MODULATION 62 3.4.3 SERIALIZER AND CLOCK PATH 67 CHAPTER 4 MEASUREMENT 71 4.1 OVERVIEW 71 4.2 EYE DIAGRAM 76 4.3 POWER CONSUMPTION 81 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 84 BIBLIOGRAPHY 86 초 록 92박