A Quadrature Error Corrector for Aperiodic, Quarter-rate Data Strobe Signals in HBM3 Interfaces

This paper proposes a quadrature error corrector (QEC) for the aperiodic, quarter-rate data strobe (DQS) signals in the high bandwidth memory generation 3 (HBM3) interfaces. Unlike the existing approaches, which are applicable to periodic clock signals only, the proposed QEC can adjust the phase spacings among four aperiodic, quarter-rate DQS signals to be equal to 1/4 of the operating clock period. Its pulse-width detector measures each phase spacing by charging a capacitor with a fixed current during the difference period and comparing its voltage against the voltage of a four-times larger capacitor charged for the whole clock period. The post-layout simulation results of a prototype QEC designed in a 40-nm CMOS process show that the QEC can correct the phase errors ranging -43.2 similar to 43.2 degrees with errors less than 5.01 degrees for both seamless and burst modes. The QEC consumes the maximum power of 2.42mW when operating at 1.6-GHz and 1.1-V supply, and occupies the active area of 0.01 mm(2).