A 1.8 V SiGe BiCMOS Cable Equalizer with 40-dB Peaking Control up to 60 GHz

A low-noise, digitally-assisted broadband cable equalizer with 26 dB gain and over 40 dB of gain and peaking control from DC to 60 GHz was designed and fabricated in a production 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The circuit features a low-voltage and low-noise TIA input stage, and digitally variable gain cells based on MOS-HBT cascodes. Equalization of 44 and 78.6-Gb/s data rates over 6 and 4 m long coaxial cables with 30 dB attenuation at the respective Nyquist frequency is demonstrated. The chip consumes 250 mW from a single 1.8 V supply.