A 20 Gb/s Limiting Amplifier in 65nm CMOS technology

Abstract

This paper presents a 20Gb/s Limiting Amplifier (LA) with the active interleaving feedback technique both to broaden the bandwidth and achieve flatness response. The LA includes an input match and DC offset cancellation (DCOC), a four-stage 3rd order amplifier core and an output buffer for test. Simulated in the 65nm CMOS technology, the LA exhibits a voltage gain of 38.5dB, a 3-dB bandwidth of 18GHz and an integrated input noise of 0.56mV with the area of only 0.45 × 0.25 mm2. The chip excluding buffer is supplied by 1.2V VDD and consumes DC power of 61mW.