A 5Gb/s transceiver with an ADC-based feedforward CDR and CMA adaptive equalizer in 65nm CMOS

A high bandwidth and a robust performance are demanded in the consumer market applications. An ADC-based transceiver satisfies these demands and enables power/area scaling with process [1,2]. We developed and tested a spread-spectrum-clocking (SSC) compliant 5-Gb/s transceiver in 65-nm CMOS. The receiver uses an ADC-based front-end that samples the incoming signal without adjusting the phase relation between the sampling clock and the signal, hence eliminating the need for phase control of the sampling clock (Fig. 8.7.1). The phase tracking of the incoming signal and the data decision are performed entirely in the numerical domain without generating physical sampling-clock phases. An adaptive digital FFE (feed-forward equalizer) compensates for a channel loss up to 15dB at 2.5 GHz, using an on-chip adaptation controller based on CMA (constant-modulus algorithm). The CDR operated with BER less than 1E-12 when the transmitter and receiver clock signals were independently SSC-modulated at a modulation frequency of 30 kHz with a frequency deviation of 0 to −5000ppm.