Tutorial 2
Digital equalization for Multilevel signaling in high-speed SerDes

Masum Hossain , Carleton University

Multilevel signaling has extended the lifeline of wireline signaling beyond 100 Gb/s. But it’s SNR penalty has mandated much more sophisticated equalization that is more suitable for digital implementation. This presentation aims at bridging the gap between well-understood analog/mixed-signal solutions and today’s DSP-based solutions. Starting from traditional analog architectures, this talk will walk through the evolution toward today’s DSP-based equalization and provide the background for tomorrow’s sequence decoding.

Masum Hossain received Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, in 2010. From 2007 to 2013, he worked in product development and industrial research, focusing on high-speed link design in multiple organizations, including Intel, Gennum, Rambus, MACOM, Xilinx and Cisco. In 2013, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. Recently in 2023, he joined Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Dr. Hossain received the Best Student Paper Award at the 2008 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference and the Analog Device’s Outstanding Student Designer Award in 2010. In 2021 he received EPS Society nominated best paper award in IEEE Transaction in Components, Packaging and Manufacturing. He is serving as Associate Editor for SSCL and Guest Editor for JSSC. He is nominated as a distinguished lecturer for Solid State Circuit Society (SSCS).