Low-power LVDS I/O interface for above 2Gb/s-per-pin operation

Abstract

Low Voltage Differential Signaling (LVDS) has become a popular choice for high-speed serial links to conquer the bandwidth bottleneck of intra-chip data transmission. This paper presents the design and the implementation of LVDS Input/Output (I/O) interface circuits in a standard 0.18 μm CMOS technology using thick gate oxide devices (3.3 V), fully compatible with LVDS standard. In the proposed transmitter, a novel Common-Mode FeedBack (CMFB) circuit is utilized to keep the common-mode output voltage stable over Process, supply Voltage and Temperature (PVT) variations. Because there are no area greedy resistors in the CMFB circuitry, the disadvantage of large die area in existing transmitter structures is avoided. To obtain sufficient gain, the receiver consists of three amplifying stages: a voltage amplifying stage, a transconductance amplifying stage, and a transimpedance amplifying stage. And to exclude inner nodes with high RC time constant, shunt-shunt negative feedback is introduced in the receiver. A novel active inductor shunt peaking structure is used in the receiver to fulfill the stringent requirements of high speed and wide Common-Mode Input Region (CMIR) without voltage gain, power dissipation and silicon area penalty. Simulation results show that data rates of 2 Gbps and 2.5 Gbps are achieved for the transmitter and receiver with power consumption of 13.2 mW and 8.3 mW respectively.