A 10-Gb/s reconfigurable CMOS equalizer employing a transition detector-based output monitoring technique for band-limited serial links

Limitations in data transmission caused by band limitation in broadband communication links can. be improved significantly by using equalization techniques. In this paper, a reconfigurable feed-forward equalizer employing a transition detector (TD)-based calibration technique that provides a universal channel compensation solution is presented. Moreover, the newly proposed TD-based calibration technique monitors the channel output for further adjustments over time in order to provide optimum compensation in performance. The reconfigurable equalizer is implemented in a 0.18-mu m CMOS technology. The prototype successfully demonstrates the feasibility of the TD-based calibration technique for output monitoring.