TLK10xxx High Speed SerDes

Overview
Communications Interface

High Performance Analog

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 1

Transmit Pre-Emphasis
• TLK10xxx uses a 4-tap FIR filter for waveform shaping (pre-emphasis):

• This effectively increases the high-frequency gain relative to the low-frequency

gain, compensating for frequency-dependent loss in the transmission media
(e.g., PCB traces or cables)
• The filter tap coefficients are set by HS_TWPRE, HS_TWCRF, HS_TWPOST1,
and HS_TWPOST2

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 2

Transmit Pre-Emphasis Implementation (4-Tap
FIR)

HS_TWPOST2
HS_TWPRE

HS_TWCRF

HS_TWPOST1

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 3

 RX Block Diagram

T&H ADC
FFE
Rx signal Term Slicer Data
DFE
T&H ADC

AGC control

CDR
Sampling phase

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 4

Block Diagram Comments
• The sampler interface (ADC) and all subsequent digital blocks (FFE
and DFE) operate in the recovered clock domain.
– This is necessary to be able to track frequency offsets between the local
(TX) rate and the received rate.

• The input Track and Hold stage (T&H) includes some analog
equalization.
• The CDR updates the ADC sampling phase by adjusting the phase
interpolator output.
• There are three control loops acting simultaneously:
– AGC: adjusts ADC gain so that the cursor amplitude is fixed at optimal level.
Contains course amplitude adjustment via 6-dB attenuator.
– DFE: uses amplitudes of previously received bits to cancel out post-cursor
ISI effects.
– CDR: adjusts sampling phase to find optimal sampling point.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 5

Automatic Gain Control
• The automatic gain control (AGC) loop scales the input signal
amplitude so that it is in the optimal range for the ADC input. This
allows for the full-scale range of the ADC to be used.
• The AGC has both fine and course control:
– The fine control is done automatically by adjusting the ADC input stage bias
point. The fine control will give an AGC value that is between 3 and 508.
Larger values are used for larger signal amplitudes and smaller values are
used for smaller signal amplitudes. Once the AGC has settled to a value in
this range, it will indicate that it is locked.
– The course control is done by enabling or disabling a 6-dB attenuator. The
attenuator behavior is controlled by the HS_AGCCTRL parameter:
• 00 = after AGC first achieves lock, the attenuator state will not change
• 01 = the attenuator may toggle if the AGC loses lock (value changing rapidly or at
limit of range)
• 10 = attenuator forced off regardless of feedback from AGC loop
• 11 = attenuator forced on regardless of feedback from AGC loop

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 6

RX Equalization
• Feed-Forward Equalization (FFE)
– FFE is used to compensate for pre-cursor ISI effects. Since it cannot adapt
based on data history, it is set manually by the user using the HS_EQPRE
parameter:
• The setting 000 (1/9 cursor amplitude) corresponds to the greatest amount of
equalization, and should be used for long (high-loss) channels.
• The setting 110 (13/9 cursor amplitude) corresponds to the least amount of
equalization, and should be used for short (low-loss) channels.

• Decision Feedback Equalization (DFE)

– DFE is used to compensate for post-cursor ISI effects. The algorithm
adapts the tap values of a 5-tap (equivalent) FIR filter based on the
amplitudes of previously received bits.
– HS_EQLIM can be used to limit the amount of adaptation; HS_EQHLD can
be used to “freeze” the DFE in its current state. (Most applications will not
use these options.)

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 7

Channel Symbol Response with and without
FFE/DFE
Magnitude
(mV)

Time
(UI)

Pre-cursor amplitude Cursor Post-cursor amplitudes

influenced by FFE amplitude is are influenced by DFE
settings (controlled by regulated by settings (controlled by
HS_EQPRE) AGC loop adaptive algorithm)

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 8

Effect of HS_ENTRACK
• The HS_ENTRACK bit, when set, can improve the BER for short, low-
loss links.
• It causes the Track and Hold stage to be fixed in “track mode,” which
disables some of the built-in analog equalization in the device’s front
end. This causes the amount of intersymbol interference (ISI) sampled
by the ADC to be higher.
• The CDR algorithm uses ISI to determine if the sampling point is too
early or too late, so this increased ISI can actually help the algorithm
settle to an optimum sampling point for low-loss channels.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 9

CDR Operation: First Order Mode
• The first-order mode is used by setting HS_CDRFMULT to 00.

• The CDR voting algorithm will take in 8-UI blocks of samples, then
indicate whether the sampling clock phase needs to be advanced or
delayed.
– The decision is based on how much of an influence is seen on the current
bit from the two adjacent bits (“pre” and “post”).

• Each time the voting algorithm sends an instruction to advance or delay

the phase, the instruction is stored in an accumulator.
• Once the number of instructions accumulated for a particular direction
(advance or delay) matches the HS_CDRTHR value, the update will
take effect.
• The magnitude of the update will be 1/48 UI.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 10

HS_CDRTHR: Possible Settings
• 00: Four Vote Threshold
– Four phase update commands must accumulate before they take effect.
This gives the CDR its maximum first-order tracking ability.

• 01: Eight Vote Threshold

– Eight phase update commands must accumulate before they take effect.

• 10: Sixteen Vote Threshold

– Sixteen phase update commands must accumulate before they take effect.

• 11: Thirty-Two Vote Threshold

– Thirty-two phase update commands must accumulate before they take
effect. This gives the CDR its minimum first-order tracking ability.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 11

CDR Operation: Second Order Mode
• Second order tracking is enabled when HS_CDRFMULT is equal to 01
or 10. This mode is intended to be used in asynchronous applications
where there may be a frequency offset between the local and remote
reference clock sources.
• Second-Order Algorithm:
– Each time a phase adjustment is made by the first-order algorithm, it is
accumulated as a signed value in a register. The second-order algorithm
makes continuous phase adjustments at a rate proportional to the value
stored in this register.
– When HS_CDRFMULT is 01, the maximum rate of updates is one per 32
UI. When HS_CDRFMULT is 10 (2x mode), this rate is doubled to one per
16 UI.
– Making more frequent updates means that the CDR tracking ability is
increased.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 12

HS_H1CDRMODE
• The CDR determines the optimum sampling position for the serial data
by either locking on to the point in the symbol response where the pre-
cursor bit, h(-1), is 0 (HS_H1CDRMODE = 0) or to the point where the
post-cursor bit, h(+1), is 0 (HS_H1CDRMODE = 1).
• HS_H1CDRMODE = 0
– This setting is preferred for a majority of applications
– The CDR will adjust the sampling phase so that the sampled pulse response
has zero pre-cursor amplitude
– This “zero” point (and therefore the CDR sampling position) will vary with
different FFE (HS_EQPRE) settings, so it is important for these to be
optimized for various links.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 13

HS_H1CDRMODE (cont’d)
• HS_H1CDRMODE = 1
– This setting can give better performance for near-lossless links that do not
have enough pre-cursor ISI for the CDR to detect
– The CDR will adjust the sampling phase so that the sampled pulse response
has zero post-cursor amplitude
– So that DFE adaptation does not cause instability between the two loops,
the DFE tap values are fixed in this mode (i.e., adaptation is disabled).
Because of this, HS_H1CDRMODE = 1 should not be used for applications
that benefit from post-cursor equalization.

• The right choice of HS_H1CDRMODE will depend on the shape of the

channel’s pulse response. In a majority of applications, though, the
setting HS_H1CDRMODE = 0 is more appropriate.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 14

Auto-Zero Calibration
• Process variations can lead to small differential input offsets at the front
end of the TLK10xxx receiver. The device provides a calibration
routine to compensate for these offsets.
• During auto-zero calibration, the differential receiver inputs are isolated
from the application PCB and shorted together to produce a known
zero voltage.
• This known-zero voltage is used to calibrate the compare thresholds of
the input sampler.
• Once auto-zero calibration completes, the receiver inputs will work
normally
– The calibration takes about 250,000 UI, and indicates completion by setting
the AZDONE field to 1 in the MDIO register map.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 15

Auto-Zero Calibration (cont’d)
• By default, the auto-zero calibration is performed at start-up (once the
receiver is enabled and PLL is locked). However, control over when
calibration is initiated is given by the HS_AZCAL parameter:
– 00: Auto-zero calibration initiated when the receiver is enabled (default)
– 01: Auto-zero calibration is disabled
– 10: Auto-zero calibration is manually forced (triggered by rising edge on bit 1
of HS_AZCAL), and will automatically update whenever receiver is enabled
and PLL achieves lock
– 11: Auto-zero calibration is manually forced (triggered by rising edge on bit 1
of HS_AZCAL), and will not update automatically

• The auto-zero calibration is beneficial to the receiver performance, so

in most cases it is best to leave HS_AZCAL at its default value of 00.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 16

Peak Disable
• The HS_PEAK_DISABLE control allows the user to make adjustments
to the AC response of the receiver’s analog input stage.
• When HS_PEAK_DISABLE is set to 0 (default), the transfer function is
as shown below. This gives a small amount of equalization and allows
for the 3-dB bandwidth roll-off to occur at a higher frequency.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 17

Peak Disable (cont’d)
• When HS_PEAK_DISABLE is set to 1, the input stage will have a flat
AC response with a lower bandwidth.
• In general, it is good to disable peaking for serial input rates below ~6
Gbps and leave it enabled it for higher rates
• However, in some cases it may be useful to disable peaking even at
higher rates:
– This will introduce a bandwidth reduction similar to the HS_ENTRACK
control. For a low-loss channel, this may help the CDR determine lock
point.
– This can also be used if interfacing to transmitters with a fixed de-emphasis
level (i.e., some optical modules) if the de-emphasis value is too large for
the channel loss.

TI Information – Selective Disclosure 18