A Multiband Transceiver System in 45-nm CMOS for Extended Data Rate through Notchy Wireline Channels

Various forms of discontinuities such as stubs, vias, and wire bonds can result in deep amplitude notches in wireline channels. The data rate for systems operating using such channels, in the absence of a power-hungry decision-feedback equalizer (DFE), is limited by the lowest notch frequency of the channel. This brief proposes a multiband transceiver system to overcome this limitation by upconverting part of the data using an on-off keying modulation to avoid operating near the notch frequency and multiplexes it with the original baseband data. The transceiver system implemented in 45-nm low-power CMOS and shows a 10%-50% increase in data rate with a power saving of 5%-30% over a traditional broadband system employing a DFE in exemplary channels.