A 90nm CMOS Dual-Channel Powerline Communication AFE for Homeplug AV with a Gb Extension

Powerline communications is currently emerging as a strong candidate for in-home multi-media content distribution. Recently, products have become available that support 200Mb/s rates over the existing electrical wiring, which is high enough to allow streaming of multiple high-definition content. HomePlugAV is one such 200Mb/s powerline modem standard. However, for these devices to fully realize the market potential, the total application cost must be reduced and performance enhancements enabling increased network throughput must be made. Currently, HomePlug-AV products require 4 chips to implement the modem function: a processor, an external memory, an AFE, and an external line driver. With this in mind, this work describes an integrated sub-micron CMOS AFE meeting the HomePlug-AV standard, but with additional Gb/s capability. The gigabit AFE was developed for use over phoneline, coax, and powerline. In this paper we focus on its application for powerline communications.