A 34-fJ/bit 20-Gb/s 1/8-rate Charge-Steering DFE for IoT Applications

The need for receiver equalization in wireline communication systems has increased with the large increase in data rates. There are two main categories for equalizers; continuous-time linear equalizers and non-linear equalizers implemented as decision feedback equalizers (DFE). Most DFEs use half-rate or quarter-rate architectures. The DFE proposed in this paper, however, uses a 1/8-rate architecture to relax the timing constraints and reduce power consumption. This paper presents the design of a 1-tap 20-Gb/s charge-steering 1/8-rate DFE in a 65-nm CMOS technology. The proposed DFE consumes 0.68-mW from a 1-V supply and compensates for 7-dB channel loss at Nyquist when processing 20-Gb/s data.