A Low-Latency, Low-Jitter Retimer Circuit for PCIe 6.0

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Interesting work but the paper needs some improvements, as follows:

1) Fig. 1 and Fig. 3 are really essential ? For instance, about Fig. 3, in an Introduction it may be enough to state that a traditional Retimer circuit does not achieve good enough latency and jitter. Fig. 1 and 3, in my opinion, are not so strictly mandatory to justify the motivation of your work.

2) Acronyms should be define the first time they are used in the text. You need to define PISO, FIFO, UI, and PI.

3) Discussion of Fig. 4, being the core of your work, deserves a largely better description and discussion. I would like to suggest to drop Fig. 1 and 3, and use the saved room to better describe and value your idea.

4) In Fig. 6 and 9 you need to add a small "-" close to the sum block. You describe a negative feedback loop. Otherwise, the calculation yields a "-" in the denominators of Eq. (3) and (5) and, in this way, you move from Nyquist (amplifiers) to Barkhausen (oscillators).

5) Why these strange variables "phug" and "frug" in Fig. 6 ? Please, provide the etimology.

6) Eq. (9) to (11). Please provide a reference or the mathematical demonstration in a dedicated Appendix.

7) Please, indicate in the text, which kind of simulations you carried out (schematic level, system level, mathematical coding) and with which tools (for instance: PSPICE, Cadence, Altair, Matlab, generic spreadsheet).

Paper and results are of interest; so I would like to warmly invite you to improve the paper along the above guidelines.

Author Response

Thank you for your careful review and valuable suggestions to improve our manuscript. For specific changes, please refer to the attached document. We look forward to your positive response.
Yours sincerely

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I have some comments.

1. The originality is not clear. How can the features can be achieved?

2. No detailed circuits for all modules.

    It will be very difficult for the readers to understand.

3. No comparison results.

4. No post-layout simulation results.

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Thank you for your careful review and valuable suggestions to improve our manuscript. Please refer to the attached document for specific changes. We look forward to your positive response.
Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Great job. The paper is now very nice. Worth of being published. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The quality of this revised paper has been improved. I may consider the revised draft suitable for publication in this Journal. In table 3, reference 7 should change to reference 8 ?