Realisation of reciever(rx) equalization techniques to enhance the eye-diagram for usb 3.2 at 10 gb/s speed

Abstract

In recent years, technology scaling and the demand for higher data rates have driven innovation at high-speed interfaces. To meet the requirements of ultra-low power and high-speed data rate signaling, integrated systems-on-chip have become essential components in modern computing systems. While traditional parallel links have been used for a long time, controlling the skew between clocks and data lanes in the link becomes increasingly challenging with faster data rates. To address this issue, faster serial links with reduced pin count and area have emerged as an alternative. High-speed serial IO standards like PCI-e, SATA, USB, TBT, DP, HDMI, and MPHY have replaced traditional parallel links like PCI, serving multiple applications such as processor-to-processor or processor-to-peripheral communication. A typical highspeed serial communication consists of two blocks namely the transmitter (TX) block and the receiver (RX) block and a medium through which the communication happens known as channel. However, as the data rates increase, these channels behave as lossy transmission lines due to different factors like skin effect, crosstalk, internal resistance of the transmission line, Inter-Symbol Interference and dielectric absorption of signals which severely degrades the transmitted data symbols. To mitigate these losses, various techniques can be employed, such as using low-loss dielectric materials, optimizing the conductor size and spacing, employing shielding to reduce interference and crosstalk, and using equalization. Out of these, equalization being the most widely used technique in the industry postproduction. Equalization techniques are used at both the transmitter (TX) and the receiver (RX) end of the communication to compensate for signal distortion due to losses in the channel. This thesis concentrates mainly on the realization and comparison of various techniques of equalization applied at the receiver (RX) end of communication for widely used serial highspeed communication protocol named USB (specifically USB 3.2). Presently, various industry standard equalization techniques and even the combination of two or more equalization techniques at the receiver (RX) end is studied, discussed, and performed in a lab environment to conclude as of which of these equalization techniques produces the best eye-diagram by compensating for the losses that occur in the channel at the industry level. All these studies are performed at a data rate of 10 Gb/s.