BUFFERLESS BROADCASTING - A LOW-POWER DISTRIBUTED CIRCUIT TECHNIQUE FOR BROADCASTING 10-GB S CHIP INPUT SIGNALS/

Bufferless distributed circuit (BDC) broadcasting is proposed as a tec hnique for broadcasting high-speed chip input signals to a series of o n-chip destination cells as needed in crosspoint switch, parallel mult iplier, distributed amplifier, etc., chip designs. In contrast with co nventional techniques that use an on-chip buffer to assist broadcastin g, BDC broadcasting offers the advantage of lower signal delay and pow er dissipation. In an experimental GaAs heterojunction bipolar transis tor (HBT) 8 x 4 crosspoint switch assembly, BDC broadcasting was found to achieve a 40% power savings with little or no penalty in jitter or bit error rate performance at a 10-Gb/s data rate.