PAM4 transceivers for high-speed communication

A transceiver system comprising:

• an input terminal for receiving an input data stream, the input data stream being characterized by a first frequency;
• an analog front end comprising:
• a first voltage gain amplifier being configured to generate a first driving signal;
• a second voltage gain amplifier configured to generate a second driving signal;
• a track and hold (T/H) module for holding the first driving signal at a second frequency to produce a first plurality of sample signals and holding the second driving signal at the second frequency to produce a second plurality of sample signals, the second frequency being different from the first frequency;
• and
• an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) module for converting each sample signal of the first and second plurality of sample signals into a respective one of a plurality of digitized sample signals, the ADC module including a plurality of ADC slices respectively corresponding to the plurality of digitized sample signals;
• and
• a digital signal processing (DSP) module configured to calibrate the AFE based on the plurality of digitized sample signals generated from the input data stream, calibrating the AFE including adjusting respective reference voltages of the plurality of ADC slices to compensate for gain mismatches of the digitized sample signals.