Wireline Communication Circuits

We develop solutions for wireline and optical communication links ranging from system-level design to implementation in application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Our specialist focus is on the following circuit components:

• Serializer and deserializer (SerDes)
  
• High-speed I/Os (standard and custom)
• High-linearity PGA and level detectors
• Clock and data recovery (CDR) circuits and phase detectors
• Equalizers (continuous time linear, FFE, DFE) for compensation of cable insertion loss
• Voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs), PLLs, DLLs and frequency dividers.

Our digital design services combined with our extensive expertise enables us to develop mixed-signal system-on-chip solutions.

Design examples

• APIX2^® and APIX3^® physical layer module (for Inova Semiconductors GmbH) with up to 6 Gbit/s downlink and 187.5 Mbit/s uplink over one twisted pair and coax cable
  
• 11 Gbit/s transceiver for capacitive slip rings
• 4 x 10 Gbit/s to 16 x 2.5 Gbit/s demultiplexer with integrated pseudo-random bit sequence generator (PRBS)
• 56 GBaud pulse driver for electro-optical modulator
• Transceiver module (up to 3.4 Gbit/s) for transmitting data via plastic optical fiber (POF)

Fraunhofer IIS has more than 15 years of experience in the field of automotive data communications. Over this time, our system and IC services have been used to design and implement the physical layers (PHY) for the APIX^® family that has already enjoyed over 10 years of success with 100+ million devices on the road.

We continue to build on our application experience, communications engineering know-how, and mixed-signal IC design expertise to develop an advanced SerDes that takes automotive technology to new limits of 10 Gbps and beyond, representing the paradigm shift in the industry that led to PAM4 modulation.

This evolving technological development fuels specification activity within the Automotive SerDes Alliance (ASA) in which Fraunhofer IIS is one of the driving forces among a growing membership base that covers the entire automotive industry.

We develop ASICs and IPs for robust data communications in harsh electric and electro-magnetic environments in industrial applications.

With our application expertise, we can provide technological solutions that enable economical link setups with small diameters of cable, low-cost connectors, and a few external components while ensuring compliance with strict EMC requirements.

Fraunhofer IIS industrial communication ASICs

• Highest class or customer-specific electro-magnetic robustness
• Operation in high-temperature environments
• Data rates of 10 - 100 Mbit/s
• Cable lengths up to 100 m
• Transparent tunneling of 3^rd-party protocols or custom protocol definition
• Compatibility with power over data lines (PoDL)