Building terabit systems with multiple-gigabit, multiplechannel transceivers

摘要

Traditional PHY (physical-layer) devices fall into two categories: analog and digital. Semiconductor vendors build most high-speed analog PHYs on expensive, exotic processes, such as GaAs, SiGe, or bipolar. These processes offer high electron mobility, which enables high PHY performance (measured in high baud rate and low jitter). However, they suffer from several drawbacks.