Chip-to-Chip Half Duplex Spiking Data Communication over Power Supply Rails

Abstract

Chip-to-chip serial data communication is superposed on power supply over common Vdd/Vss connections through chip, package, and board traces. A power line transceiver demonstrates half duplex spiking communication at more than 100 Mbps. A pair of transceivers consumes 1.35 mA from 3.3 V, at 130 Mbps. On-chip power line LC low pass filter attenuates pseudo-differential communication spikes by 30 dB, purifying power supply current for internal circuits. Bi-directional spiking communication was successfully examined in a 90-nm CMOS prototype setup of on-chip waveform capturing. A micro controller forwards clock pulses to and receives data streams from a comparator based waveform capturer formed on a different chip, through a single pair of power and ground traces. The bit error rate is small enough not to degrade waveform acquisition capability, maintaining the spurious free dynamic range of higher than 50 dB.