A 20-Gb/s 8.4-㎽ Adaptive Equalizer for Backplane Applications

An inductorless adaptive equalizer is realized in a 0.13-㎛ CMOS technology. In order to enhance the bandwidth and high-frequency boosting of the equalization filter, the negative capacitance circuits and 4 th -order active feedback technique are introduced instead of on-chip passive inductors. Post-layout simulation results demonstrate the data rate of 20 Gb/s for 34-inch FR4 trace while dissipating power of only 8.4 ㎽ from a single 1.2-V supply. The equalizer core occupies the extremely small area of 230 × 65 ㎛².