A 10Gb/s Backplane decision feedback equalizer in 90nm-CMOS technology

This paper presents the design of a 10-Gb/s decision feedback equalizer (DFE) for chip-to-chip communications in 90-nm CMOS technology. A fast slicer architecture is proposed that achieves timing constraints without the use of speculation techniques. Removing speculation improves power consumption by 60%. The 5-tap topology was found optimum to compensate for channel losses up to 22 dB. A half-rate architecture is used to enable operation at 10-Gb/s. The DFE system consumes 43 mW from a 1.2 V supply, and occupies an area of 177µm ∗ 146µm. Post-layout simulations done using a channel with 22dB loss at 5 GHz, demonstrate the effectiveness of the DFE equalization.