A 32Gb/s, 4.7pJ/bit optical link with-11.7dBm sensitivity in 14nm FinFET CMOS

This work presents an 850nm VCSEL-based multi-mode 32Gb/s NRZ optical link with circuits in 14nm bulk FinFET CMOS. The TX uses a 3-tap, 1\2-Ul-spaced FFE to improve eye opening. The RX uses a low-BW, low-noise TIA and a speculative 1-tap DFE for high sensitivity. The TX and RX power efficiencies are 3.3 and 1.4pJ/bit, respectively. The link sensitivity is-11.7dBm OMA at BER=10'12 with PRBS31 data.