A 20-Gb/s Simultaneous Bidirectional Transceiver Using a Resistor-Transconductor Hybrid in 0.11-μm CMOS

This paper presents a 20-Gb/s simultaneous bidirectional transceiver using a resistor-transconductor (R-gm) hybrid in standard 0.11-mum CMOS. The R-gm hybrid separates the inbound signal from the signal line voltage and current without using a replica driver. It eliminates the need for precise matching between the replica- and main-driver characteristics, enabling a data rate of 20 Gb/s per differential pair, which is the highest reported for bidirectional signaling. The transceiver occupies 1.02mm and consumes 260 mW at 20 Gb/s with a bit error rate of less than 10-12. The area and power overhead due to the hybrid are 0.002 mm2and 7 mW, and correspond to 0.2% and 3% of the total transceiver area and power consumption.