From owner-stds-802-3-hssg@ieee.org Wed Mar 1 18:03 GMT 2000 Received: from gatekeeper.pdd.3com.com (gatekeeper [161.71.169.3]) by isolan.pdd.3com.com (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA16859; Wed, 1 Mar 2000 18:03:10 GMT Received: from ruebert.ieee.org ([199.172.136.3]) by gatekeeper.pdd.3com.com (Netscape Messaging Server 3.6) with ESMTP id AAA215F; Wed, 1 Mar 2000 18:01:25 +0000 Received: by ruebert.ieee.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id MAA20951; Wed, 1 Mar 2000 12:30:46 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <38BD53F2.8BE3FCA2@everest.ulinear.com> Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 09:31:31 -0800 From: Jaime Kardontchik Organization: microlinear corporation X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (X11; U; HP-UX B.10.20 9000/782) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 CC: stds-802-3-hssg@ieee.org Subject: Re: PAM-5, what are your BERs ? References: <4.1.20000229180017.00d72bd0@smbmail3> <01BF82B7.070ECDE0@pc24.cicada-semi.com> <4.1.20000301082433.00db7f00@smbmail3> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-stds-802-3-hssg@ieee.org Precedence: bulk X-Resent-To: Multiple Recipients X-Listname: stds-802-3-hssg X-Info: [Un]Subscribe requests to majordomo@majordomo.ieee.org X-Moderator-Address: stds-802-3-hssg-approval@majordomo.ieee.org X-Lines: 52 Status: RO Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 1468 JR Rivers wrote: > During the course of these discussions, I've seen people use "hard to do in > CMOS" as a reason to reject a proposal. > > I'm not trying to say that someone couldn't/shouldn't build a 10GbE > transceiver in CMOS; however, I am questioning the REQUIREMENT that it be > built in CMOS at standardization. I've been working on Ethernet products > for quite a long time, and every signalling technology has started off with > some non-CMOS implementation and eventually been reduced to CMOS. > > JR > JR, There is no such requirement. However, there are several proposals on the table (not only PAM-5 proposals) that claim that they can implement their transceiver in CMOS. An example, is 8b/10 4-WDM at 3.125 Gbaud. Another example, is Oscar Agazzi's claim that he can implement his "PAM-5 serial at 5 Gbaud" transceiver in low cost CMOS. (I am quoting one of his slides in his presentation) These proposals are included in spreadsheets and submitted to strawpolls. These claims are made to point out a significant advantage over other proposals that would seem to need more expensive and less accesible technologies. We should take these claims seriously as intended to say that their authors believe that their transceivers can be implemented NOW using CMOS. In some far future, of course, we can all claim that all the proposals will be implemented in low cost CMOS ... Jaime Jaime E. Kardontchik Micro Linear San Jose, CA 95131