A Low-Latency Synchronization Header Detector and Hardware-Efficient Correction Decoder for JESD204C Receiver

The JESD204C receiver has emerged as a mainstream SerDes interface in high-speed analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). However, it faces challenges such as long link initialization time, substantial hardware area and power consumption. To address these issues, this paper presents an optimized link-layer design for the JESD204C receiver, with a focus on enhancing synchronization header (SH) detection efficiency and reducing the area of Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) and Forward Error Correction (FEC) decoding circuits. First, a dynamic search space(DSS)-based SH detection method is proposed. Leveraging multi-level XOR logic, this method efficiently eliminates non-transition bits from the data stream, enabling rapid localization of the 2-bit SH and thus shortening the synchronization delay during link establishment. Second, to mitigate the large area overhead of the data link layers decoding module, a CRC and FEC decoder (CAFD) with a logic-sharing architecture is designed: common factors in the decoding process are identified and shared, significantly reducing redundant hardware resources. Additionally, a low-complexity critical path identification algorithm is introduced to guide factor-sharing constraints, ensuring the decoder meets timing requirements while optimizing area. Finally, the proposed JESD204C receiver is implemented with a 28-nm CMOS process and verified on an FPGA platform. Experimental results show that the design not only eliminates redundant SH detection operations and accelerates link initialization/synchronization but also improves hardware resource utilization. Compared with state-of-the-art solutions, the hardware area and power consumption are reduced by 47.6% and 15.1%, respectively, while the SH locking time is shortened by 60%.