Flexible wide-range and high bandwidth auxiliary clock and data recovery (CDR) circuit for transceivers

Apparatus and associated methods relate to implementing an analog auxiliary clock and data recovery (CDR) path to provide a high bandwidth CDR in a transceiver that supports both PAM4 and NRZ signaling. In an illustrative example, the auxiliary CDR path may include a phase-frequency detector (PFD)-based phase-locked loop (PLL) and a phase detector (PD)-based PLL. When the PFD-based PLL is locked to a reference clock signal of the transceiver, the PFD-based PLL may be then disabled and the PD-based PLL may be then enabled. Implementing the auxiliary CDR path may advantageously enable the transceiver to implement much larger parts per million (ppm) acquisition and tracking, and thus enable the transceiver to advantageously support new standards such as Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) 5.0 and PCIe 6.0, for example.