Adaptive PRML SOC development for read/write capable optical drives

A new PRML (partial response maximum likelihood) architecture is presented to demonstrate its high-speed operation - 420 MHz for DVD-ROM 16X - and read/write capabilities in optical systems - CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD-RAM. In order to realize 420 MHz operation, and maximize the channel data recovery capability, new data and clock recovery methods are proposed. In this paper, the performance of the data recovery parts are mostly described. The adaptive PRML LSI has three times better performance than conventional slicer systems in sync error tests. Also, the PID (physical ID) test yields a 2 times lower rate on the byte error test. Finally, the playback performance for poor quality DVD movie titles is increased by around 70% with the PRML system. A test chip was fabricated using 0.18 μm CMOS technology and the product has been proved to demonstrate the performance of the proposed architecture.