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The Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science (JSTS) is an international, peer-reviewed, and open-access journal that is published bimonthly.
- Scope: semiconductor processes, devices, circuits, and MEMS.
- Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Woo Young Choi (ECE, Seoul National University)
- Indexed within Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), SCOPUS, Korea Citation Index (KCI), and other databases.

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Title Design and Analysis of Referenceless Dynamic Comparator for PAM-4 Receiver
Authors (Tae-Gu Kang) ; (Jin-Ku Kang)
DOI https://doi.org/10.5573/JSTS.2025.25.2.166
Page pp.166-175
ISSN 1598-1657
Keywords Dynamic comparator; PAM-4; BER; common-mode level; common-mode-rejection
Abstract In pulse amplitude modulation 4-level (PAM-4) receiver design, the variation of the effective least significant bit (LSB) threshold voltage degrades the margin of LSB decision and worsens the bit error rate (BER).
This paper proposes a dynamic comparator to solve the problem. The proposed dynamic comparator features low variability in effective LSB threshold voltage due to its common-mode-rejection capability. The proposed dynamic comparator has been designed and simulated at post-layout level in a 45 nm CMOS with 1.1 V supply voltage. The effective LSB threshold voltage variations of the conventional and proposed dynamic comparators are quantitatively analyzed and compared by simulation results.