A Low-Power 1 Gb/s Line Driver with Configurable Pre-Emphasis for Lossy Transmission Lines

TL;DR

This paper presents a low-power, high-speed line driver with configurable pre-emphasis and adaptive equalization, suitable for lossy transmission lines in 65 nm CMOS technology.

Contribution

It introduces a three-tap feed-forward equalization architecture with programmable delays and amplitudes, enabling customizable pre-emphasis for improved signal integrity.

Findings

Operates at 1 Gb/s with 9 mW power consumption

Provides configurable delay and amplitude for each tap

Achieves effective pre-emphasis in lossy transmission environments

Abstract

A line driver with configurable pre-emphasis is implemented in a 65 nm CMOS process. The driver utilizes a three-tap feed-forward equalization (FFE) architecture. The relative delays between the taps are selectable in increments of 1/16th of the unit interval (UI) via an 8-stage delay-locked loop (DLL) and digital interpolator. It is also possible to control the output amplitude and source impedance for each tap via a programmable array of eight source-series terminated (SST) drivers. The entire design consumes 9 mW from a 1.2 V supply at 1 Gb/s.