A 0.18  m CMOS 3.125-Gb/s Digitally Controlled Adaptive Line Equalizer with Feed-Forward Swing Control for Backplane Serial Link

Abstract

A new compact line equalizer is proposed for backplane serial link applications. The equalizer has two control blocks. The feed-forward swing control block determines the optimal low frequency level and the feedback control block detects signal shapes and decides the high-frequency boosting level of the equalizer. Successful equalization is demonstrated over a 1.5m long PCB trace at 3.125-Gb/s by the circuit realized with 0.18 ㎛ CMOS process. The circuit occupies only 0.16mm 2 and consumes 20mW with 1.8V supply.