NeuralEQ: Neural-Network-Based Equalizer for High-Speed Wireline Communication

With the growing demand for high-bandwidth applications like video streaming and cloud services, the data transfer rates required for wireline communication keeps increasing, making the channel loss a major obstacle in achieving low bit error rate (BER). Equalization techniques such as feed-forward equalizer (FFE) and decision feedback equalizer (DFE) are commonly used to compensate for channel loss in wireline communication, but they have limitations in terms of noise boosting and timing constraints. On the other hand, the forward-backward algorithm can achieve better BER performance, but its high complexity makes it impractical for wireline communication. In this work, we propose a novel neural network, NeuralEQ, that effectively mimics the forward-backward algorithm and performs better than FFE and DFE while reducing complexity of the forward-backward algorithm. Performance of NeuralEQ is verified through simulations using real channels.

A Context-Aware Readout System for Sparse Touch Sensing Array Using Ultra-low-power Always-on Event Detection

Increasing demand for larger touch screen panels (TSPs) places more energy burden to mobile systems with conventional sensing methods. To mitigate this problem, taking advantage of the touch event sparsity, this paper proposes a novel TSP readout system that can obtain huge energy saving by turning off the readout circuits when none of the sensors are activated. To this end, a novel ultra-low-power always-on event and region of interest detection based on lightweight compressed sensing is proposed. Exploiting the proposed event detector, the context-aware TSP readout system, which can improve the energy efficiency by up to 40x, is presented.