Receiver Analog Front-End Cascading Transimpedance Amplifier and Continuous-Time Linear Equalizer for Signals of 5 to 30 Gb/s

A 5–30 Gb/s receiver analog front-end (AFE) cascading transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and continuous-time linear equalizer (CTLE) were implemented using a Taiwan Semiconductor 180 nm process. The system comprises a two-stage differential input pair CTLE, TIA, and a differential termination resistor &...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pragada Venkata Satya Challayya Naidu, Chih-Wen Lu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-05-01
Series:Electronics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/11/10/1546
Description
Summary:A 5–30 Gb/s receiver analog front-end (AFE) cascading transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and continuous-time linear equalizer (CTLE) were implemented using a Taiwan Semiconductor 180 nm process. The system comprises a two-stage differential input pair CTLE, TIA, and a differential termination resistor <i>R</i><sub>m</sub>. A source-degenerated transconductance stage was adopted in the CTLE, and source follower and shunt feedback resistor stages were adopted in the TIA. The proposed CTLE could achieve high frequencies by altering the tail current with fixed degenerate capacitance <i>C</i><sub>S</sub> and resistance <i>R</i><sub>S</sub>. The proposed AFE achieved high bandwidth, and the use of a feedback resistor <i>R</i><sub>f</sub> and inductor <i>L</i><sub>f</sub> improved its high-frequency performance. Simulation results revealed that the CTLE can compensate for 16 dB of channel loss at a 3 GHz Nyquist frequency and can open closed eyes in a 6 Gb/s non-return-to-zero signal with a bit error rate of 0.16 × 10<sup>−12</sup> for a 2<sup>31</sup> − 1 pseudorandom binary sequence input. The AFE could compensate for 12 dB of channel loss at a 15 GHz Nyquist frequency and can open closed eyes in a 30 Gb/s PAM4 signal from a pseudorandom binary sequence input; it consumed 27 mW of power at 1.8 V.
ISSN:2079-9292