Design and Analysis of RF/High-Speed SERDES in 28 nm CMOS Technology for Aerospace Applications

This paper proposes a transistor-level design of a high-speed 10-bit Serializer-Deserializer (SerDes) circuit for Aerospace applications, in a 28 nm CMOS technology. A data-rate above 10 Gbit/s has been taken as a target for the development, together with a −50 °C to 125 °C temperature range. The extreme performance requirements made necessary the realization of a full-custom design and the use of Current Mode Logic (CML) circuits. This solution brings advantages in devices where high speeds are required, overcoming standard CMOS logic capabilities. Moreover, an aerospace application involves an analysis over radiation and their effect on integrated circuits. The relatively low presence of cumulative radiation doses in this environment let them to be neglected and to focus the attention on the disturbs coming from high-energy particles hitting the substrate (Single Event Effects). These, in fact, constitute one of the main causes of failures in electronic devices for avionic systems.