Design considerations for gigabit Ethernet 1000Base-T twisted pair transceivers

Gigabit Ethernet on Category-5 cable is the next generation high-speed Ethernet LAN for twisted pair copper medium with a minimum required reach of 100 meters. This paper presents a brief overview of the transmission scheme agreed upon by the IEEE 802.3ab task force for 1 Gb/s full-duplex operation over 4 pairs of category-5 cable. Some system level simulation results are presented followed by a discussion of the type of digital and analog circuits required for a single chip mixed-signal CMOS implementation of the transceiver. For reliable operation under worst case cabling conditions, the DSP portion of the transceiver has to perform over 150 Giga operations per second.