A fully integrated analog frontend macro for cable modem applications in 0.18 µm CMOS

An analog front-end (AFE) module designed for use together with a cable modem transceiver on one single die is presented. All the analog functionality is implemented in a pure 0.18µm CMOS process with 1.8V supply. Besides the critical requirements towards substrate- and supply-isolation, the design of the high-order anti-aliasing filter, the high performance ADC and the low jitter PLL are most challenging. With a silicon area of 9.9mm²and a power dissipation of less than 1 Watt, this 3-channel AFE can be considered a reference design for first-IF sampling (SAW-less) cable modem systems.