This paper presents a 10-Gb/s backplane transmitter with a finite impulse response (FIR) pre-emphasis equalizer to suppress inter-symbol-interference (ISI) at data centers and transition edges simultaneously. The design concepts are discussed. Circuits in 0.13µm IBM CMOS technologies are given. Comparison with conventional data center oriented equalizer and transition edge oriented equalizer are carried out on a 40-inch FR4 differential backplane.