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This paper presents a quad-lane serial transceiver that supports virtually all data center communication standards around 8.5–13 Gbps, implemented in 28 nm CMOS technology. The transmitter consists of 20:2 mux followed by a half-rate source-series terminated (SST) driver embedded with a 4 tap FFE and an analog equalizer. The receiver has an adaptive CTLE, 5 tap DFE, and fully digital CDR followed by 2:20 demux. At 13 Gbps, the transceiver can equalize 35 dB Nyquist loss at BER of 10-12. At 1.0 V supply, the transceiver consumes 49 mW/lane at 13 Gbps rate with full equalization capability. An LC VCO-based fractional PLL provides the clocking to quad TX/RX lanes using a low-power inductively tuned clock routing channel. The transceiver architecture not only enables the baud rate operation from 8.5 to 13 Gbps but also supports a wide range of oversampled subrates. This work represents the lowest reported power in its class to date, and the transceiver is suitable for many applications due to its comprehensive flexibility and power efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the design of an analog-front-end (AFE) integrated into a DSP-based transceiver for both serial 10 Gbps KR-backplane and long-reach-multimode-fiber (LRM) applications. The receiver consists of a programmable gain amplifier (PGA) and a 6-bit 4-way time-interleaved ADC, which is digitally calibrated to compensate for the offset, gain and phase mismatches between the interleaved channels. With a 5 GHz input signal, the ADC achieves overall SNDR of 29 dB, while the measured SNDR of flash sub-ADC is 31.6 dB. The power efficiency FoM of the complete interleaved ADC is 1.4 pJ per conversion step. The PLL uses a calibrated LC-VCO and the TX features a full-rate 3-tap de-emphasis at the output. Inductively tuned buffers connected in tandem are employed to distribute the 10 GHz clock. Random and deterministic jitter measured at the TX output are 0.38 psrms and 2.65 pdpp, respectively. Implemented in 65 nm CMOS technology, the AFE occupies an area of 3 mm² and consumes 500 mW from a 1 V supply. BER of less than 10-15is measured over legacy backplanes with 26 dB loss at Nyquist and the measured transceiver optical sensitivity is less than -13 dBm for all four LRM stressors, exceeding both the KR and the LRM specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quiz is presented on how to diagnose multiple painless cutaneous nodules manifested in a case study of a 34-year-old man with 3 asymptomatic skin nodules on his lower abdomen, right flank and lower back that have been increasing in size for 4 months.

A letter to the editor is presented which discusses the case study of a 60-year-old female who was diagnosed with vesicular lichen amyloidosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]