A 20 Gbps PAM4 Data Transmitter ASIC for Particle Physics Experiments

physics.ins-det

/ Authors

L. Zhang, E. M. Cruda, C-P. Chao, S-W. Chen, B. Deng, R. Francisco, D. Gong, D. Guo, S. Hou, G. Huang

and 15 more authors

X. Huang, S. Kulis, C-Y. Li, C. Liu, E. R. Liu, T. Liu, P. Moreira, J. Prinzie, H. Sun, Q. Sun, X. Sun, G. Wong, D. Yang, J. Ye, W. Zhang

/ Abstract

We present the design and test results of a novel data transmitter ASIC operating up to 20.48 Gbps with 4-level Pulse-Amplitude-Modulation (PAM4) for particle physics experiments. This ASIC, named GBS20, is fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS technology. Two serializers share a 5.12 GHz Phase Locked Loop (PLL) clock. The outputs from the serializers are combined into a PAM4 signal that directly drives a Vertical-Cavity-Surface-Emitting-Laser (VCSEL). The input data channels, each at 1.28 Gbps, are scrambled with an internal 27-1 Pseudo-Random Binary Sequence (PRBS), which also serves as a frame aligner. GBS20 is tested to work at 10.24 and 20.48 Gbps with a VCSEL-based Transmitter-Optical-Subassembly (TOSA). The power consumption of GBS20 is below 238 mW and reduced to 164 mW in the low-power mode.