A 25Gb/s RX front-end with multi-stage linear equalizer and 3-tap speculative DFE in 65nm CMOS technology

Abstract

This work proposes a RX front-end structure, which is used for channel equalization of 25Gb/s high-speed links. This design includes two parts, linear equalizer and decision feedback equalizer. Linear equalizer consists of the variable gain amplifier, the continuous-time linear equalizer and the output buffer, which provide 19dB peaking gain around the Nyquist frequency. The half-rate decision feedback equalizer with one speculative tap is cascaded after the buffer to eliminate residual inter-symbol interference. The circuit layout occupies an area of 0.005mm² designed in 65nm CMOS, the power consumption of which is 96mW under 1.2V power supply. The design is used to equalize the FR-4 backplane channel, of which the insertion loss reaches 35dB at 12.5GHz. The result shows that both the voltage margin and time margin of the receiver signal reach 171mV and 0.61UI at the BER of 10^-12, respectively.