Paper Info
Title
DDR4 transmitter with AC-boost equalization and wide-band voltage regulators for thin-oxide protection in 14-nm SOI CMOS technology.
Abstract
A DDR4 transmitter (TX) for direct-attach memory on a processor chip is presented as well as the design of the associated low-dropout linear voltage regulators (LDO) that generate the split-mode supply voltages for the thin-oxide protection of the TX output stages operated from the 1.2 V DDR4-supply. The TX uses AC-boost equalization. Signal-integrity (SI) simulations have shown that pre-emphasis equalization is better suited to meet the DRAM eye mask specification than de-emphasis equalization. The LDO design is optimized for good frequency compensation at large load variations, which typically occur during burst-mode transmissions in DDR memory links. A wide-band low-output impedance buffer located between the LDO's error amplifier and the power transistor is proposed that implements a load-sensing and current-injection scheme to extend the low-output impedance range of the buffer, which in turn stabilizes the dominant output pole over a wider di/dt-range. The design is implemented in 14-nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) CMOS technology, and the key performance measures are 2.8 pJ/b efficiency of the TX when driving with 34 Omega into a 40 Omega DRAM load and a figure-of-merit (FOM) of 96 ps for the LDO.
Year
Venue
Field
2017
ESSCIRC 2017 - 43RD IEEE EUROPEAN SOLID STATE CIRCUITS CONFERENCE
Dram,Equalization (audio),Power semiconductor device,Computer science,Field-effect transistor,Chip,CMOS,Electronic engineering,Electrical engineering,Frequency compensation,Voltage regulator
DocType
Citations 
PageRank 
Conference
0
0.34
References 
Authors
2
11
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Marcel A. Kossel117933.86
Christian Menolfi224541.54
Pier Andrea Francese313825.33
Lukas Kull414118.63
Thomas Morf524442.54
Thomas Toifl627548.02
Matthias Braendli715824.28
Alessandro Cevrero810716.21
Danny Luu9167.55
Ilter Özkaya10165.72
Hazar Yueksel1174.15