A 0.18-μm CMOS 3.5-gb/s continuous-time adaptive cable equalizer using enhanced low-frequency gain control method

This paper describes a high-speed CMOS adaptive cable equalizer using an enhanced low-frequency gain control method. The additional low-frequency gain control loop enables the use of an open-loop equalizing filter, which alleviates the speed bottleneck of the conventional adaptation method. In addition, combined adaptation of low-frequency gain and high-frequency boosting improves the adaptation accuracy while supporting high-frequency operation. The open-loop equalizing filter incorporates a merged-path topology and offers infinite input impedance, which are suitable for higher frequency operation and cascaded design. This equalizing filter controls its common-mode output voltage level in a feedforward manner, thereby improving bandwidth. A prototype chip was fabricated in 0.18-μm four-metal mixed-mode CMOS technology. The realized active area is 0.48×0.73 mm². The prototype adaptive equalizer operates up to 3.5 Gb/s over a 15-m RG-58 coaxial cable with 1.8-V supply and dissipates 80 mW. Moreover, the equalizing filter in manual adjustment mode operates up to 5 Gb/s over a 15-m RG-58 coaxial cable.