A 1.4 pJ/bit, Power-Scalable 16×12 Gb/s Source-Synchronous I/O With DFE Receiver in 32 nm SOI CMOS Technology

A power-scalable 2 Byte I/O operating at 12 Gb/s per lane is reported. The source-synchronous I/O includes controllable TX driver amplitude, flexible RX equalization, and multiple deskew modes. This allows power reduction when operating over low-loss, low-skew interconnects, while at the same time supporting higher-loss channels without loss of bandwidth. Transceiver circuit innovations are described including a low-skew transmission-line clock distribution, a 4:1 serializer with quadrature quarter-rate clocks, and a phase rotator based on current-integrating phase interpolators. Measurements of a test chip fabricated in 32 nm SOI CMOS technology demonstrate 1.4 pJ/b efficiency over 0.75" Megtron-6 PCB traces, and 1.9 pJ/b efficiency over 20" Megtron-6 PCB traces.