An Automatic Loop Gain Control Algorithm for Bang-Bang CDRs

An automatic loop gain control algorithm (ALGC) for a bang-bang (BB) clock and data recovery (CDR) is proposed. The proposed algorithm finds the optimum loop gain using the autocorrelation of a BBPD output signal for minimum MSE performance. Mathematical proof of the algorithm is presented for both rotator-based and VCO-based CDRs with finite loop delay. A 25 Gb/s transceiver IC is fabricated using a 40 nm CMOS process to validate the performance of the algorithm. The power consumptions of TX and RX are 37.8 mW and 46.8 mW, respectively and the synthesized area implementing a digital loop filter together with the proposed ALGC occupies 140 μm × 170 μm.