A 16Gb/s 1st-Tap FFE and 3-Tap DFE in 90nm CMOS

Much effort has been made toward producing a high-speed multi-tap decision feedback equalizer (DFE), which would be a key component in removing inter-symbol interference (ISI) in high-speed chip-to-chip communication. A loop-unrolled approach is widely used in work toward the design of high-speed multi-tap DFEs. It eliminates the feedback operation in first post-cursor equalization [1–3], an operation that limits operational speed in conventional multi-tap DFEs. There are two problems, however, to its application to equalization of 16Gb/s signals. The first is that additional components in the feedback path, used for speculation on the basis of sampled data, increase 2nd-tap feedback delay, preventing high-speed operations. The second problem is that jitter increase in equalized waveforms prevents accurate clock timing recovery because the 1st tap ISI of the waveform is left un-equalized. In response to this situation, we have developed three techniques for achieving 16Gb/s communication: (1) an analog feedforward technique for high-speed 1st-tap ISI equalization, (2) an analog feedforward technique for jitter reduction in equalized edges, and (3) technique for employing bypass feedback and a voltage swing limiter in order to speed-up both 2ndtap and 3rd-tap equalization. We have applied these techniques to a 16Gb/s equalizer fabricated in a 90nm CMOS process, and their use helps achieve a 33% increase in operating speed over that with conventional multi-tap DFEs[3].