A 20 mW, 4.8 Gbit/sec, SEU robust serializer in 65nm for read-out of data from LHC experiments

The availability of a sub 1-W SerDes for future LHC read-out systems is of paramount importance for building new low-mass inner detectors for HL-LHC. This work reports on the design of two alternative architectures for the serializer block within a high speed transmitter with the objective of achieving a power consumption of less than 30 mW at the operating speed of 4.8 Gbit/sec. Two alternative architectures are implemented using a commercial 65nm LP-CMOS technology. The architectures used are a 'simple TMR' and a 'code-protected' one, and are meant to investigate different strategies to handle SEUs. While using the same technology and flip-flops, the simple TMR architecture results in a consumption of 30 mW, the code-protected one of 19 mW, which are better than 1/4 of the power used in state-of-the-art rad-hard serializers. Early data on robustness to SEU effects are also presented.