Energy-Efficient Dynamic Comparator with Active Inductor for Receiver of Memory Interfaces

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a dynamic comparator that improved the operation performance of receiver (RX) with the effort to reduce power consumption. It is implemented via double-tail StrongARM latch comparator with an active inductor and efforts are made to minimize power consumption for high-speed resulting in better energy efficiency at the targeted high frequency. In this regard, our comparator is suitable for memory application RX to satisfy both low-power and high-speed. It is applied to the single-ended RX designed with a continuous-time linear equalizer, a clock generator and a quarter-rate 2-tap decision-feedback equalizer which is appropriate for the high-frequency memory application. Compared to the conventional one, our design, fabricated in 55nm CMOS process, provides an improvement of 7% in unit interval (UI) margin under the same power consumption and receives up to 10Gb/s PRBS15 data at BER < 10-12 with 0.4 UI margin and energy efficiency of 0.67pJ/bit.