Analysis and Design of Low Voltage Low Noise LVDS Receiver

Abstract

The relative advancement of technologies and availability of high frequency clocks and digital circuits, the operating frequencies of integrated circuits are increasing at a faster rate. But the rate at which different ICs communicate is not growing. So it requires an extremely high-performance solution that consumes a minimum power and is relatively immune to noise and inexpensive. Low Voltage Differential Signaling (LVDS) is a way to communicate data using a very low voltage swing (about 350mV) differentially over two PCB traces. It deals about the analysis and design of a low power, low noise and high speed comparator for a high performance Low Voltage Differential Signaling (LVDS) Receiver. The circuit of a Conventional Double Tail Latch Type Comparator is modified for the purpose of low-power and low noise operation even in small supply voltages. The circuit is simulated with 2V DC supply voltage, 350mV 500MHz sinusoidal input and 1GHz clock frequency. LVDS Receiver using comparator as its second stage is designed and simulated in Cadence Virtuoso Analog Design Environment using GPDK 180nm .By this design, the power dissipation, delay and noise can be reduced.

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IOSR Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering (IOSR-JECE)
e-ISSN: 2278-2834,p- ISSN: 2278-8735.Volume 9, Issue 2, Ver. V (Mar - Apr. 2014), PP 10-18
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Analysis and Design of Low Voltage Low Noise LVDS Receiver
1Bincy P Chacko, 2Christo Ananth M.E
1M E Student, VLSI Design Francis Xavier Engineering College Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu
2Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE Francis Xavier Engineering College Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu
Abstract: The relative advancement of technologies and availability of high frequency clocks and digital
circuits, the operating frequencies of integrated circuits are increasing at a faster rate. But the rate at which
different ICs communicate is not growing. So it requires an extremely high-performance solution that consumes
a minimum power and is relatively immune to noise and inexpensive. Low Voltage Differential Signaling
(LVDS) is a way to communicate data using a very low voltage swing (about 350mV) differentially over two
PCB traces. It deals about the analysis and design of a low power, low noise and high speed comparator for a
high performance Low Voltage Differential Signaling (LVDS) Receiver. The circuit of a Conventional Double
Tail Latch Type Comparator is modified for the purpose of low-power and low noise operation even in small
supply voltages. The circuit is simulated with 2V DC supply voltage, 350mV 500MHz sinusoidal input and
1GHz clock frequency. LVDS Receiver using comparator as its second stage is designed and simulated in
Cadence Virtuoso Analog Design Environment using GPDK 180nm .By this design, the power dissipation, delay
and noise can be reduced.
Index Terms: Double-tail comparator, Buffer, Differential Amplifier
I. Introduction
The past few decades have witnessed introduction of new technologies. The scaling of CMOS
Technology and high level silicon integration tends to increase the on-chip data rates. But the rate at which
different ICs can communicate is not growing.
Current-Mode Logic (CML) and Low-Voltage Positive-Emitter-Coupled Logic (LVPECL) are the
commonly used techniques for high speed data transmission at a rate of 10Gbps. These techniques require an
input signal swing of 800 mV and therefore consume more power during data transmission. Low voltage
differential signaling (LVDS) is a technology-independent input-output standard used for data communications,
telecommunications, etc. where high speed data transfer is necessary. LVDS is developed for low voltage, low
power, low noise and high speed IO interfaces. It uses a small swing differential signal of 350mV for fast data
transfer at significantly reduced power and excellent noise immunity. Differential data transmission uses two
wires with opposite voltage swings to deliver the information. If common mode noise is coupled onto two wires
is get rejected by the receiver which looks at only the difference between the two signals. Since the differential
signal cancels the magnetic field, it radiates less noise. By using small swings power consumption is also
reduced. Compared to other differential cable driving standards like RS422 and RS485, LVDS has the lowest
differential swing.
An LVDS driver circuit, placed at one point, converts a digital logic signal into differential signal
format. The receiver circuit placed at other point will convert this differential signal back into a single ended
digital signal format. LVDS Receiver is two stage architecture with first stage being a rail-to-rail amplifier and
the second stage is a cross coupled comparator. In [3] the design and the implementation of input/output (I/O)
interface circuits for Gb/s-per-pin operation, compatible with low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS)
standard was presented. It uses double-stage folded cascode architecture with minimum common-mode and
differential input voltage. But this will support only the lower side of the rail. To support full rail input a supply
voltage higher than 2.5vis required. In [4]-[5], LVDS receivers are designed which requires large supply voltage
for high speed data transmission.
In this paper, an analysis of LVDS Receiver has been presented for various latch type comparators.
Section I explain the operation and characteristics of Rail to Rail amplifier stage and comparator stage of LVDS
Receiver. Section III discusses simulation results and followed by conclusions in Section IV.
II. Circuit Description
Low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) technology is developed for low voltage and low power
point to point communication by means of differential signaling and low voltage swing. To get a high
performance LVDS receiver, a rail to rail amplifier followed by a comparator is used.

Analysis and Design of Low Voltage Low Noise LVDS Receiver
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A. Rail To Rail Input Amplifier
The first stage of LVDS Receiver is a rail to rail input amplifier circuit.
The first stage maps the incoming signal to a level so that NMOS Common Drain Amplifier with a
resistive load is sufficient after that circuit. NMOS Common Drain Amplifier is followed by a PMOS
Differential pair, supports a high common mode voltages. In order to support low common mode voltage, a
PMOS Differential pair is added in parallel. Current mirror circuit is added at the common source terminal of
outer pair to stabilize current flowing through output nodes. When the inner differential pair is conducting outer
pair is off and thus at any input common mode output is due to any one of the differential pair only.
Fig. 1 shows the schematic diagram of the rail to rail amplifier uses a load resistance of few kilo ohms.
Transistor M10 and M6 in series with a 1KΩ resistor form a common drain amplifier. M5 and M9 transistors of
PMOS differential amplifier support high common mode voltage. M3 and M4 transistors of PMOS differential
amplifier support low common mode voltage. 1KΩ resistor was used as the load.
Fig. 1. Input Rail to rail amplifier used as the first stage of LVDS Receiver.
B. Comparator
Dynamic latch based comparators are used as the second stage of LVDS Receiver. These comparators
can make fast decision because it uses positive feedback. In this section, analysis of dynamic latch based
comparators are presented i.e., Conventional Double-Tail Latch Type Comparator and Modified Latch Type
Double Tail Comparator are analyzed, based on which the proposed comparator will be presented.
Conventional Double-Tail Latch Type Comparator
A conventional double tail latch type comparator is shown in the Fig. 2. It uses two tails, one tail for
input stage and other for latching stage. Since it uses two tails, stacking of transistors is avoided and therefore it
can operate at low supply voltage. It allows large current flowing from the supply voltage.
The operation of conventional double-tail latch type comparator is as follows. During the reset phase when
CLK=0, transistors M1 and M12 are off. Transistors M4 and M5 pulls FN and FP nodes to VDD results in
output nodes discharge to ground. During decision making phase when CLK= VDD, M1 and M12 turn on and
M4 and M5 turn off. This causes FN and FP node discharges towards ground.
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the conventional double-tail latch type comparator.

Analysis and Design of Low Voltage Low Noise LVDS Receiver
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It has the advantage of reduced kickback noise because transistors M8 and M9 isolate output stage of
circuit from its input stage. This structure has less stacking and can operate in lower supply voltages. The
disadvantage is, CLK and CLKBAR require high accuracy timing. During the decision making phase
transistors M8 and M9 are off and therefore they do not play any role in improving the performance of circuit
and also during the reset phase these nodes have to be charged to VDD from ground.
Modified Double-Tail Latch Type Comparator
The schematic diagram of modified double tail latch type comparator is shown in Fig. 3. To improve
the latch regeneration speed in the proposed comparator two control transistors M4 and M5 are added to the
conventional double tail latch type comparator in a cross coupled manner.
The operation is as follows. During reset phase when CLK= 0, M1 and M14 are off, M6 and M7 pulls
nodes FN and FP to VDD and therefore M4 and M5 are off. The transistors M8 and M11 discharges both output
nodes to ground. During decision making phase when CLK=VDD, M1 and M14 are on and M6 and M7 are off.
Depending on input voltages INN and INP,FN and FP nodes discharges with different discharging rates. If
Voltage (INP) >Voltage (INN) output node FN discharges faster than FP. Transistor M4 starts to turn on,
pulling FP node to VDD, correspondingly other control transistor M5 remains off make FN to discharge
completely to ground.
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of Modified Double Tail Latch Type Comparator
When the control transistor M4 turns on the other node FP returns to VDD and therefore the difference
between FN and FP increasing in an exponential manner, results in reduced regeneration time. This structure
requires less power because one of the output nodes was not discharge completely. The disadvantage is that the
circuit may susceptible to kickback noise because fastest comparators produce more kickback noise.
III. Proposed Lvds Receiver
The LVDS receivers using existing comparators that we analyzed above are subjected to environmental
noise and output is getting fluctuated with clock transition. The main idea of the proposed LVDS receiver is to
design a multi GBPS low noise LVDS receiver. Due to the better performance of LVDS receiver using modified
double tail latch type comparator, the proposed comparator is designed based on the LVDS receiver using
modified double tail latch type comparator.
C. Proposed Latch Type Comparator
Circuit Description
In the circuit of LVDS Receiver using proposed latch type comparator in Fig. 4, back to back inverter
in the latch stage of comparator is replaced by back to back single output differential amplifier. Differential
amplifier has following advantages over back to back inverter: high immunity to environment noise and
common mode noise, having better common mode rejection ratio. The main aim of the project is to minimize
the noise present in the latch stage of the comparatordue to the fluctuation produced at the output during clock
transition.

Analysis and Design of Low Voltage Low Noise LVDS Receiver
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Fig. 4 Schematic diagram of Proposed Double Tail Latch Type Comparator
The operation of proposed latch type comparator is as follows. During the reset phase, when clk= 0,
transistors M4 and M6 turn on and charge FP to VDD. The transistors M12 and M13 turn on and discharge FN
node to GND. Transistors M14, M15 and PMOS transistors of differential amplifier blocks M16 and M19 turns
on, NMOS transistors of differential amplifier block M21, M22 and M8, M9 turns off. Then the output nodes
OUTN and OUTP charged to VDD. During decision making phase, when clk= VDD, the FP node discharges
from VDD to GND depending on the rate of change of input voltages. At a certain voltage of FP nodes, the
inverter pairs M10/M12 and M11/M13 invert the FP node signal into a regenerated signal. These regenerated
signals turn PMOS transistors M15, M16, M19, and M14 off. And eventually M8, M9, M20, M23 turns on.
Hence the back-to-back differential pair again regenerates the FN node signals and because of M10 and M12
being on, the positive feedback, latch stage converts the small voltage difference transmitted from FN node into
a rail to rail digital level output When the control transistor M5 turns on the other node FP returns to VDD and
therefore the difference between FN and FP increasing in an exponential manner, results in reduced regeneration
time. This structure requires less power because one of the output nodes was not discharge completely.
IV. Simulation Results
This section analyzes the performance of LVDS Receiver with various comparators that were discussed
in the previous section. Comparison is made based on their advantages and disadvantages with respect to their
speed, delay, power dissipation and noise. Cadence Virtuoso® Analog Design Environment, Virtuoso® XL
Layout Editing Software is used for analyzing the circuits.
Table 1 Input Characteristics
LVDS Receiver consists of two stages, rail to rail input amplifier stage and comparator stage. Fig. 1
shows the Circuit Diagram (designed in Cadence) of Rail to Rail Input Amplifier. The supply voltage of this
comparator is 2V and sinusoidal input voltage is 350mV, 100MHz. Input Specifications are given in Table 1.
Fig. 5 shows the transient response of the rail to rail amplifier circuit. A level shifted differential voltage swing
is produced at the output corresponding to the input given.
SUPPLY VOLTAGE (VDD)
2V
TECHNOLOGY
CADENCE GPDK 180 nm
INPUT VOLTAGE
0-350mV
INPUT FREQUENCY
500MHz
CLOCK VOLTAGE RANGE
0 – 1.5V
CLOCK FREQUENCY
1GHz
CLOCK RISE TIME
100ps
CLOCK FALL TIME
100ps
CLOCK PULSE WIDTH
500ps

Analysis and Design of Low Voltage Low Noise LVDS Receiver
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Fig. 5 Transient response of the Rail to Rail Amplifier circuit.
The comparator stage comprises of a latch circuit followed by buffer circuit (a self biased differential
amplifier followed by an inverter). The circuit diagram of buffer is shown in the Fig. 6. The test setup for latch
type comparator used in LVDS Receiver circuit is shown in Fig. 8 which is the same for other comparators too.
Fig. 6 Schematic Diagram of Output buffer
Fig. 7 Test setup for Conventional Latch Type Comparator
Fig. 2 shows the circuit diagram of conventional double tail latch type comparator and Fig. 8 shows the
transient analysis of the conventional double tail latch type comparator. For the transient analysis we have taken
sinusoidal voltage source as the input.
Fig. 8 Transient Response of Conventional Double Tail latch type Comparator

Analysis and Design of Low Voltage Low Noise LVDS Receiver
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Fig. 3 shows the schematic diagram of modified double tail latch type comparator. Fig. 9 shows the
transient analysis of the circuit. Compared to conventional double tail latch type comparator, the output node of
the latch stage is less affected by delay. But its output is fluctuating with the clock. Fig. 4 shows the schematic
diagram of the proposed latch type comparator and transient analysis is given in Fig.10. Transient analysis
concludes that the output node in latch stage is less affected by noise and not fluctuating with the clock
transition. When the common mode signal appears at the two inputs outp node at the proposed latch type
comparator goes to a high value, therefore the proposed structure has high common mode rejection ratio.
Fig. 9 Transient response of Modified Double Tail Comparator.
Fig. 10 Transient response of Proposed Latch Type Comparator
Then the analysis of LVDS Receiver with above said latch type comparators are presented. The test
setup for LVDS Receiver using Conventional Double Tail Latch Type Comparator is shown in Fig. 11. In this
circuit rail to rail input amplifier is followed by Conventional Latch Type Comparator. Fig. 12 shows the
transient response of LVDS Receiver when a sinusoidal input signal of 350mV amplitude, 500 MHz is applied.
Output is a digital waveform of amplitude 2V.
Fig. 11 Test Setup for LVDS Receiver using Conventional Latch Type Comparator

Analysis and Design of Low Voltage Low Noise LVDS Receiver
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Fig. 12 Transient response for LVDS Receiver using Conventional Double Tail Latch Type Comparator
The test setup for LVDS Receiver using Modified Double Tail Latch Type Comparator is same as Fig.
11. In this circuit rail to rail input amplifier is followed by Modified Double Tail Latch Type Comparator. Fig.
13 shows the transient response of LVDS Receiver when a sinusoidal input signal of 350mV amplitude, 500
MHz is applied. Output is a digital waveform of amplitude 2V.
Fig. 13 Transient Response of LVDS Receiver using Modified Double Tail Latch Type Comparator
The test setup for LVDS Receiver using Proposed Latch Type Comparator is same as in Fig. 11. In this
circuit rail to rail input amplifier is followed by Modified Proposed Latch Type Comparator. Fig. 14 shows the
transient response of LVDS Receiver when a sinusoidal input signal of 350mV amplitude, 500 MHz is applied.
Output is a digital waveform of amplitude 2V.
Fig. 14 Transient Response of LVDS Receiver using Proposed Latch Type Comparator
To compare the performance of the LVDS Receiver with the existing comparators, each circuit was
simulated in Cadence® virtuoso analog design environment. Technology used is GPDK 180nm technology with
VDD=2V as supply voltage. Table 2 shows the result summary after simulation.

Analysis and Design of Low Voltage Low Noise LVDS Receiver
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Table 2 Result summary after simulation when supply voltage is 2V
PARAMETERS
LVDS RECEIVER WITH FOLLOWING
COMPARATORS
CONVENTI
ONAL
DOUBLE
TAIL
COMPARAT
OR
MODIFIED
DOUBLE TAIL
COMPARATOR
PROPOSED
LATCH
TYPE
COMPARAT
OR
AVERAGE
POWER(mW)
28.39
28.77
28.61
DELAY(ns)
0.864
2.856
2.504
NOISE(10-14Hz)
3.8459
3.2002
.0025984
SPEED(GHz)
1.157
0.3501
0.399361
From Fig. 15 it implies that though LVDS Receiver with Proposed Latch Type Comparator has highest
transistor count but it still consumes less power than LVDS Receiver with Modified Double Tail Latch Type
Comparator. In Fig. 16 shows, LVDS Receiver with Proposed Latch Type Comparator has less delay compared
to Modified Double Tail Latch Type Comparator but greater delay compared Conventional Double Tail Latch
Type Comparator. From Fig. 17 it can say that LVDS Receiver with Modified Double Tail Latch Type
Comparator has less noise compared to LVDS Receivers using other Latch Type Comparator.
Fig. 15 Average Power Dissipation of the LVDS Receiver using above comparators
Fig. 16 Delay of the LVDS Receiver using above comparators versus supply voltage
Fig. 17 Noise of the LVDS Receiver using above comparators versus supply voltage

Analysis and Design of Low Voltage Low Noise LVDS Receiver
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V. Conclusion
The performances of the LVDS Receiver with the existing comparators were simulated in Cadence®
virtuoso analog design environment. GPDK 180nm technology is used with VDD=2V as supply voltage. From
the simulation results LVDS Receiver with Proposed Latch Type Comparator have highest transistor but it still
consumes less power than LVDS Receiver with Modified Double Tail Latch Type Comparator. The speed of the
Modified Double Tail Comparator is improved with respect to LVDS Receiver with Modified Double Tail
Comparator. From the analyses it is concluded that LVDS Receiver with Modified Double Tail Comparator is
superior than the LVDS Receiver using other comparators.
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