Lecturer: Andrea Mazzanti  

Course name: Circuits And Systems For Wireline Communications
Course code: 504230
Degree course: Ingegneria Elettronica
Disciplinary field of science: ING-INF/01
L'insegnamento è caratterizzante per: Ingegneria Elettronica
University credits: ECTS 6
Course website: n.d.

Specific course objectives

The course is planned for students interested in exploring the themes of advanced analog design and in particular addresses the main aspects that concern the design and realization in CMOS technology of electronic interfaces for very high speed base-band digital communications. Applications span from computer interfaces (processor-to-memory, processor-to-peripherals…) to wired and optical communications at speed exceeding 10Gbit/sec. The course will cover the transceivers architectures and building blocks, starting from a behavioral description of the functionality up to the schematics and circuit design for the realization. More specifically, the students will learn the key aspects of signal integrity, wide band amplification techniques, high speed equalizers and systems for clock generation and recovery (PLL, DLL, CDR). Many practical activities (laboratory) are planned. The students will gain the competences required for system planning and to design the main building blocks for high speed communications over cable and optical channels.

Course programme

Binary signals and transmission channels
Properties of the random binary signals. Effects of noise, jitter and bandwidth limitations. Characteristics and limitations of wired channels (attenuation, reflections, dispersion, noise and cross-talk) and optical channels (lasers, photodiodes, single- and multi-mode fibers).

Amplifiers and Drivers
Drivers for wired channels and lasers. Trans-impedance amplifiers, programmable-gain amplifiers, limiters, high-speed comparators. Broad-band circuit techniques: inductive-peaking, Cherry-Hopper amplifier, distributed amplification.

Channel Equalization
General concepts and system analysis. Fully analog and mixed-signal equalizers (Transmitter pre-emphasis, Feed-forward Equalizers, Decision-Feedback equalizers). Circuit topologies for very high speed. Adaptation algorithms e techniques.

Generation and Recovery of the clock signal
General concepts and system analysis. Phase Locked Loops (PLL), Delay Locked Loops (DLL). Phase detectors for random binary signals, phase interpolators, Oscillators, high speed dividers. Architectures of Clock and Data Recovery. Circuit design for highly integrated realizations.

Laboratory
Programming language for the behavioral description of analog circuits: Verilog-A. Behavioral simulation of a complete transceiver for Gbit/sec communications. Circuit design of the key building blocks with CMOS technology.

Course entry requirements

Analog Integraded Circuits design, Electrical communications, Electromagnetic fields

Course structure and teaching

Lectures (hours/year in lecture theatre): 45
Practical class (hours/year in lecture theatre): 0
Practicals / Workshops (hours/year in lecture theatre): 0

Suggested reading materials

Slides and lecture notes will be distributed. The following books are eventually suggested:

W. J. Dally , J. W. Poulton. Digital Systems Engineering. Cambridge University Press.

B. Razavi. Design of Integrated Circuits for Optical Communications. McGraw-Hill.

S.H. Hall and H. L. Heck. Advanced Signal Integrity For High-Speed Digital Designs. John Wiley & Sons.

Testing and exams

A lab. project will be assigned to each student. The discussion of the achieved results will be the basis of the oral examination. The examination will continue with a discussion around all the topics of the course.