A 0.7V 20fJ/bit inductive-coupling data link with dual-coil transmission scheme

This paper presents a 20fJ/bit inductive-coupling data link and a 135fJ/cycle clock link operating at a 0.7V supply voltage. A dual-coil transmission scheme reduces the number of stacked transistors in a transmitter, enabling low-voltage and hence low-power operation. A test chip is fabricated in 65nm CMOS whose nominal supply voltage is 1.2V. A data rate of 1.1Gb/s and a clock rate of 3.3GHz, both with an error rate <;10^-12, are achieved at the 0.7V supply voltage.