Current-mode full-duplex (CMFD) signaling for high-speed chip-to-chip interconnect

In this work we propose a new current-mode full-duplex (CMFD) signaling scheme for high-speed chip-to-chip data communication. In this scheme, all the internal nodes of the link are maintained at low-impedance, facilitating high-speed data communication. A new hybrid circuit topology required for separating the inbound signal from the outbound signal is presented. The proposed current-mode hybrid is realized by a source-coupled main driver, a scaled down replica stage and a common-gate (CG) transimpedance amplifier (TIA). Detailed design, analysis, noise and jitter characterization of the proposed hybrid is presented. The hybrid is realized in 1.8 V, 0.18μm digital CMOS technology. Using this hybrid circuit topology, CMFD signaling over a chip-to-chip interconnect is demonstrated. The post-layout performance shows 8 Gb/s data transfer rate over a FR4 PCB trace of length 7.5 in. for a target bit-error rate (BER) of 10−12. The FR4 PCB trace is modeled by measured 4-port S-parameters in the frequency range from 100 MHz to 20 GHz. The input-referred noise current of the receiver and output-noise voltage of transmitter are 1.76μA and 5.34 mV, respectively. The standalone power consumption of the hybrid is 14.64 mW.