RECEIVER WITH TIME-VARYING THRESHOLD VOLTAGE

• US 20130241622A1
• Filed: 11/10/2010
• Published: 09/19/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rambus Inc.
• Original Assignee: Rambus Inc.
• Inventors: Zerbe, Jared L., Leibowitz, Brian S., Lin, Qi
• Granted Patent: US 9,843,309 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 327/323
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 7/02 with means for avoiding parasitic signals
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 3/013 Modifications of generator to prevent operation by noise or interference
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 5/153 Arrangements in which a pulse is delivered at the instant when a predetermined characteristic of an input signal is present or at a fixed time interval after this instant switching at zero crossing H03K17/13
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/03057 with a recursive structure H04L25/03031 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/066 Multilevel decisions, not including self-organising maps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/4902 Pulse width modulation; Pulse position modulation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/4917 using multilevel codes

Abstract

A system for communicating information between circuits is described. A transmit circuit provides pulse-amplitude-modulation (PAM) signals via a communication channel to a receiver. A circuit in the receiver determines digital values from the received signals using a time-varying threshold voltage, which varies during the bit-time. This approach may compensate for inter-symbol interference (ISI) to increase the voltage and timing margins of the system.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

an input node to receive a signal representing a series of logical values, wherein a given logical value is within a corresponding bit-duration;

a threshold generator circuit to generate a time-varying threshold voltage during the bit-duration; and

a slicer, coupled to the input node and the threshold generator circuit, to resolve the logical values from the signal based at least on the time-varying threshold voltage.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the time-varying threshold voltage varies linearly with time during the bit-duration.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the time-varying threshold voltage varies non-linearly as a function of time.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a waveform of the time-varying threshold voltage is configured to match portion of a pulse response of a communication channel to which the slicer is coupled.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a clock input node, coupled to the threshold generator circuit, to receive a clock signal;

wherein the threshold generator circuit generates the time-varying threshold voltage based on the clock signal.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the clock signal includes a source-synchronous clock signal that is communicated in a communication channel to which the slicer is coupled.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a register to store an activation bit; and

control logic, coupled to the register, to selectively enable or disable the time-varying threshold voltage based at least on the stored activation bit.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a register to store threshold-voltage configuration information; and

control logic, coupled to the register, to control configuration of one or more characteristics of the time-varying threshold voltage based at least on the stored threshold-voltage configuration information.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a first instance of:

an integrator circuit, having a first input coupled to the input node and a second input coupled to the threshold generator circuit, wherein the integrator circuit is to integrate the difference between the received signal and the time-varying threshold voltage;

wherein the slicer is coupled to the integrator circuit to determine the digital values.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a first instance of:

a difference circuit, coupled to the input node, to compare the received signal and the time-varying threshold voltage; and

an integrator circuit, coupled to the difference circuit, to integrate the comparison result of the received signal and the time-varying threshold voltage;

wherein the slicer is coupled the integrator circuit to determine the digital values.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein integration by the integrator is gated by a windowing signal during the bit-duration.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising:

a second instance of the difference circuit, the integrator circuit and the slicer, which are coupled in the same way as the first instance of difference circuit, the integrator circuit and the slicer, wherein a phase of the time-varying threshold voltage of the difference circuit in the second instance is different in phase from the time-varying threshold voltage of the difference circuit in the first instance; and

a feedback circuit, comprising;

a memory to store a digital value from an immediately preceding bit-duration; and

a multiplexer, coupled to the memory and slicers in the first and second instances of the difference circuit, the integrator circuit, and the slicer, to select an output from one of the slicers during a current bit-duration based at least on the stored digital value in the memory.

13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the phase of the time-varying threshold voltage of the difference circuit in the second instance is opposite in phase to the time-varying threshold of the difference circuit in the first instance, and wherein the apparatus operations at a double data rate.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

multiple slicers, coupled to the input node, which having a different threshold voltage and a different sampling time during the bit-duration; and

a logic circuit, coupled to the multiple slicers, to determine the digital values based at least on outputs from the multiple slicers.

15. The apparatus of claim 14,

wherein each threshold voltage is fixed;

and

wherein the logic circuit includes a combining circuit to determine the digital values based at least on an output value associated with a majority number of the slicers.

16. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a summation circuit, coupled to the input node, to sum the received signal and a current time-varying threshold voltage;

an integrator circuit, coupled to the summation circuit, to integrate the sum of the received signal and the current time-varying threshold voltage, wherein the slicer is coupled to the integrator circuit to determine the digital values;

a multiplexer, coupled to the slicer, to provide the current time-varying threshold voltage by selectively outputting the time-varying threshold voltage or the negative of the time-varying threshold voltage based at least on a digital value during a current bit-duration.

17. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the received signal is a differential signal.

18. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the received signal corresponds to multiple pulse-amplitude-modulation (multi-PAM) encoding of the data sequence.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, further comprising multiple slicers corresponding to different levels in the multi-PAM encoding, and

wherein the time-varying threshold voltages for at least two of the slicers are different.

20. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising multiple slicers corresponding to different signal lines, and

wherein the multiple slicers share the time-varying threshold voltage.

21. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein while generating the time-varying threshold voltage, the threshold generator circuit is configured to generate a time-varying offset voltage.

22. The apparatus of claim 1, the time-varying threshold voltage is generated based at least on a set of pre-determined values.

23. An apparatus, comprising:

an input node to receive a signal that representing a series of logical values, wherein a given logical value is within a corresponding bit-duration;

a threshold generator circuit to generate a time-varying threshold voltage during the bit-duration; and

a means, coupled to the input node and the offset-voltage generator circuit, for determining the logical values from the received signal based at least on the time-varying threshold voltage.

24. An apparatus, comprising:

an input node to receive a signal representing a series of logical values, wherein a given logical value is within a corresponding bit-duration;

a threshold generator circuit to generate a time-varying threshold voltage during the bit-duration; and

a decision circuit to determine the logical values from the received signal based at least on the time-varying threshold voltage, wherein the decision circuit includes two instances of;

a difference circuit, coupled to the input node, to compare the received signal and a given time-varying threshold voltage in the pair of time-varying threshold voltages;

an integrator circuit, coupled to the difference circuit, to integrate the comparison result of the received signal and the given time-varying threshold voltage; and

a slicer, coupled the integrator circuit, to determine the digital values; and

wherein the decision circuit further comprises a feedback circuit that includes;

a memory to store a digital value from an immediately preceding bit-duration; and

a multiplexer, coupled to the memory and slicers in the first and second instances of the difference circuit, the integrator circuit, and the slicer, to select an output from one of the slicers during a current bit-duration based at least on the stored digital value in the memory.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the decision circuit operates in a double-data rate mode.

26. A system, comprising:

a transmitter to provide a signal, which corresponds to a data sequence that is characterized by a series of logical values, wherein a given logical value is within a corresponding bit-duration;

a communication channel, coupled to the transmitter, to convey the signal; and

a receiver, coupled to the communication channel, wherein the receiver includes a circuit to determine digital values corresponding to the data sequence from the received signal, and

wherein the circuit has a time-varying threshold voltage during the bit-duration.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the transmitter and the receiver are disposed on different integrated circuits.

28. A method for determining digital values from a signal representing a series of logical values, wherein a given logical signal is within a corresponding bit-duration, the method, comprising:

using a digital receiver to receive the signal;

comparing the signal to a time-varying threshold voltage, wherein the time-varying threshold voltage varies during the bit-duration; and

determining the digital values from the comparison of the received signal and the time-varying threshold voltage.