Benjamin D. Parker

A 10-Gb/s 5-Tap DFE/4-Tap FFE Transceiver in 90-nm CMOS Technology

This paper presents a 90-nm CMOS 10-Gb/s transceiver for chip-to-chip communications. To mitigate the effects of channel loss and other impairments, a 5-tap decision feedback equalizer (DFE) is included in the receiver and a 4-tap baud-spaced feed-forward equalizer (FFE) in the transmitter. This combination of DFE and FFE permits error-free NRZ signaling over channels with losses exceeding 30 dB. Low jitter clocks for the transmitter and receiver are supplied by a PLL with LC VCO. Operation at 10-Gb/s with good power efficiency is achieved by using half-rate architectures in both transmitter and receiver. With the transmitter producing an output signal of 1200mVppd, one transmitter/receiver pair and one PLL consume 300mW. Design enhancements of a half-rate DFE employing one tap of speculative feedback and four taps of dynamic feedback allow its loop timing requirements to be met. Serial link experiments with a variety of test channels demonstrate the effectiveness of the FFE/DFE equalization

A 6.4-Gb/s CMOS SerDes core with feed-forward and decision-feedback equalization

A 4.9-6.4-Gb/s two-level SerDes ASIC I/O core employing a four-tap feed-forward equalizer (FFE) in the transmitter and a five-tap decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) in the receiver has been designed in 0.13-/spl mu/m CMOS. The transmitter features a total jitter (TJ) of 35 ps p-p at 10/sup -12/ bit error rate (BER) and can output up to 1200 mVppd into a 100-/spl Omega/ differential load. Low jitter is achieved through the use of an LC-tank-based VCO/PLL system that achieves a typical random jitter of 0.6 ps over a phase noise integration range from 6 MHz to 3.2 GHz. The receiver features a variable-gain amplifier (VGA) with gain ranging from -6to +10dB in /spl sim/1dB steps, an analog peaking amplifier, and a continuously adapted DFE-based data slicer that uses a hybrid speculative/dynamic feedback architecture optimized for high-speed operation. The receiver system is designed to operate with a signal level ranging from 50 to 1200 mVppd. Error-free operation of the system has been demonstrated on lossy transmission line channels with over 32-dB loss at the Nyquist (1/2 Bd rate) frequency. The Tx/Rx pair with amortized PLL power consumes 290 mW of power from a 1.2-V supply while driving 600 mVppd and uses a die area of 0.79 mm/sup 2/.

A 45nm CMOS neuromorphic chip with a scalable architecture for learning in networks of spiking neurons

Efforts to achieve the long-standing dream of realizing scalable learning algorithms for networks of spiking neurons in silicon have been hampered by (a) the limited scalability of analog neuron circuits; (b) the enormous area overhead of learning circuits, which grows with the number of synapses; and (c) the need to implement all inter-neuron communication via off-chip address-events. In this work, a new architecture is proposed to overcome these challenges by combining innovations in computation, memory, and communication, respectively, to leverage (a) robust digital neuron circuits; (b) novel transposable SRAM arrays that share learning circuits, which grow only with the number of neurons; and (c) crossbar fan-out for efficient on-chip inter-neuron communication. Through tight integration of memory (synapses) and computation (neurons), a highly configurable chip comprising 256 neurons and 64K binary synapses with on-chip learning based on spike-timing dependent plasticity is demonstrated in 45nm SOI-CMOS. Near-threshold, event-driven operation at 0.53V is demonstrated to maximize power efficiency for real-time pattern classification, recognition, and associative memory tasks. Future scalable systems built from the foundation provided by this work will open up possibilities for ubiquitous ultra-dense, ultra-low power brain-like cognitive computers.

Single-chip 1062 Mbaud CMOS transceiver for serial data communication

This work implements the media independent functions specified in the emerging ANSI fibre channel standard at 1062.5 Mbaud. Integrated onto a single CMOS chip are: two phase-locked loops (PLL) for clock generation and clock recovery, a selectable 1B or 2B parallel interface with corresponding multiplexer and demultiplexer for parallel-to-serial and serial-to-parallel conversion, word alignment logic for byte synchronization, 8B/l0B coder and decoder, and high-speed differential CMOS PECL drivers and receivers for the serial I/O. The chip measures 3.9/spl times/4.5 mm/sup 2/ with 100 I/O and dissipates 1.2 W at 1062 Mbaud with a 3.6 V supply. This design achieves higher-speed operation than previous CMOS work with similar integration, and lower power dissipation with higher integration than bipolar implementations at comparable speeds.

A cycle-accurate, cycle-reproducible multi-FPGA system for accelerating multi-core processor simulation

Software based tools for simulation are not keeping up with the demands for increased chip and system design complexity. In this paper, we describe a cycle-accurate and cycle-reproducible large-scale FPGA platform that is designed from the ground up to accelerate logic verification of the Bluegene/Q compute node ASIC, a multi-processor SOC implemented in IBMs 45 nm SOI CMOS technology. This paper discusses the challenges for constructing such large-scale FPGA platforms, including design partitioning, clocking & synchronization, and debugging support, as well as our approach for addressing these challenges without sacrificing cycle accuracy and cycle reproducibility. The resulting fullchip simulation of the Bluegene/Q compute node ASIC runs at a simulated processor clock speed of 4 MHz, over 100,000 times faster than the logic level software simulation of the same design. The vast increase in simulation speed provides a new capability in the design cycle that proved to be instrumental in logic verification as well as early software development and performance validation for Bluegene/Q.

Integrated Self-Healing for mm-Wave Power Amplifiers

Self-healing as a technique for improving performance and yield of millimeter-wave power amplifiers (PAs) against process variation and transistor mismatch, load impedance mismatch, and partial and total transistor failure is described and investigated. A 28-GHz PA is presented with three types of sensors, two types of actuators, data converters, and a digital algorithm block that are all integrated on a single chip to show the validity of the technique. Two algorithms are implemented to either maximize output power or to minimize dc power for a desired output power. Measurements from 20 chips show increased RF output power up to 3 dB or reduced dc power by 50% in backoff with a 50-Ω load. Self-healing with up to 4-1 voltage standing-wave ratio load impedance mismatch is verified and linear operation under nonconstant envelope modulation is shown to improve with healing. Self-healing after laser cutter induced transistor failure is verified and increases RF output power by up to 5.4 dB. The aggregate yield of the PA across several representative specifications is increased from 0% to 80% with self-healing.

A Linearized, Low-Phase-Noise VCO-Based 25-GHz PLL With Autonomic Biasing

This paper describes a new approach to low-phasenoise LC VCO design based on transconductance linearization of the active devices. A prototype 25 GHz VCO based on this linearization approach is integrated in a dual-path PLL and achieves superior performance compared to the state of the art. The design is implemented in 32 nm SOI CMOS technology and achieves a phase noise of - 130 dBc/Hz at a 10 MHz offset from a 22 GHz carrier. Additionally, the paper introduces a new layout approach for switched capacitor arrays that enables a wide tuning range of 23%. More than 1500 measurements of the PLL across PVT variations were taken, further validating the proposed design. Phase noise variation across 55 dies for four different frequencies is σ < 0.6 dB. Also, phase noise variation across supply voltages of 0.7-1.5 V is 2 dB and across 60 °C temperature variation is 3 dB. At the 25 GHz center frequency, the VCO FOMT is 188 dBc/Hz. Additionally, a digitally assisted autonomic biasing technique is implemented in the PLL to provide a phase noise and power optimized VCO bias across frequency and process. Measurement results indicate the efficacy of the autonomic biasing scheme.

An 8x 10-Gb/s Source-Synchronous I/O System Based on High-Density Silicon Carrier Interconnects

A source synchronous I/O system based on high-density silicon carrier interconnects is introduced. Benefiting from the advantages of advanced silicon packaging technologies, the system uses 50 μm-pitch μC4s to reduce I/O cell size and fine-pitch interconnects on silicon carrier to achieve record-breaking interconnect density. An I/O architecture is introduced with link redundancy such that any link can be taken out of service for periodic recalibration without interrupting data transmission. A timing recovery system using two phase rotators shared across all bits in a receive bus is presented. To demonstrate these concepts, an I/O chipset using this architecture is fabricated in 45 nm SOI CMOS technology. It includes compact DFE-IIR equalization in the receiver, as well as a new all-CMOS phase rotator. The chipset is mounted to a silicon carrier tile via Pb-free SnAg μ C4 solder bumps. Chip-to-chip communication is achieved over ultra-dense interconnects with pitches of between 8 μm and 22 μm. 8 × 10-Gb/s data is received over distances up to 4 cm with a link energy efficiency of 5.3 pJ/bit from 1 V TX and RX power supplies. 8 × 9-Gb/s data is recovered from a 6-cm link with 16.3 dB loss at 4.5 GHz with an efficiency of 6.1 pJ/bit.

A semi-digital delay-locked loop using an analog-based finite state machine

This brief describes a low-power full-rate semi-digital delay-locked loop (DLL) architecture using an analog-based finite state machine (AFSM) and a polyphase filter. The AFSM architecture uses low-power analog blocks to map high-frequency loop feedback information to low frequency, thus reducing the total power required for digital signal processing and for the macro as a whole. The polyphase filter generates full-rate multiphase outputs for a phase rotator, hence a reference clock of the semi-digital DLL can be generated by any reference source including a phase-locked loop with an LC voltage-controlled oscillator. The prototype semi-digital DLL in 0.12-/spl mu/m CMOS exhibits less than 10/sup -12/ bit error rate at 3.2 Gb/s consuming 60 mW.

A 10Gb/s 5-Tap-DFE/4-Tap-FFE Transceiver in 90nm CMOS

A 90nm CMOS 10Gb/s SerDes for chip-to-chip communications over backplanes is presented. To mitigate channel impairments, the RX uses a 5-tap DFE and the TX a 4-tap FIR filter. The IC equalization abilities are evaluated using different type of channels. The power consumption of one (TX, RX) pair and one PLL is 300mW for 1.2Vpp differential TX output swing