Peripheral-coupled-waveguide MQW electroabsorption modulator for near transparency and high spurious free dynamic range RF fiber-optic link

Peripheral coupled waveguide (PCW) design has been deployed in InGaAsP multiple quantum-well (MQW) electroabsorption modulator (EAM) at 1.55-/spl mu/m wavelength. PCW enhances the optical saturation power and reduces the optical insertion loss and the equivalent V/sub /spl pi// simultaneously. A radio-frequency link using a 1.3-mm-long lumped-element PCW EAM has achieved experimentally a link gain of -3 dB, at 500 MHz and at input optical power of 80 mW. The corresponding two-tone multioctave spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) at the same bias is measured at 118 dB/spl middot/Hz/sup 2/3/. The single-octave SFDR at the third-order null bias is 132 dB/spl middot/Hz/sup 4/5/.     

Enhanced linear dynamic range of asymmetric Fabry-Pe/spl acute/rot modulator/detector

An InGaAsP multiple-quantum-well asymmetric Fabry-Pe/spl acute/rot modulator/detector has been developed for radio-over-fiber systems. The measured bandwidth is more than 6 GHz and the total insertion loss is 7.1 dB. The property of nonlinearity and spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) has been studied theoretically. By optimizing the operation optical wavelength and bias voltage based on the numerical simulation, fifth-order nonlinearity dominates the intermodulation distortion and an SFDR of 101 dB/spl middot/Hz/sup 4/5/ has been achieved experimentally.     

Microwave noise performance of AlGaN-GaN HEMTs with small DC power dissipation

We report low microwave noise performance of discrete AlGaN-GaN HEMTs at DC power dissipation comparable to that of GaAs-based low-noise FETs. At 1-V source-drain (SD) bias and DC power dissipation of 97 mW/mm, minimum noise figures (NF/sub min/) of 0.75 dB at 10 GHz and 1.5 dB at 20 GHz were achieved, respectively. A device breakdown voltage of 40 V was observed. Both the low microwave noise performance at small DC power level and high breakdown voltage was obtained with a shorter SD spacing of 1.5 /spl mu/m in 0.15-/spl mu/m gate length GaN HEMTs. By comparison, NF/sub min/ with 2 /spl mu/m SD spacing was 0.2 dB greater at 10 GHz.     

High-efficiency 1.3 /spl mu/m InAsP-GaInP MQW electroabsorption waveguide modulators for microwave fiber-optic links

High-efficiency electroabsorption waveguide modulators have been designed and fabricated using strain-compensated InAsP-GaInP multiple quantum wells at 1.32-/spl mu/m wavelength. A typical 200-/spl mu/m-long modulator exhibits a fiber-to-fiber optical insertion loss of 9 dB and an optical saturation intensity larger than 10 mW. The 3-dB electrical bandwidth is in excess of 20 GHz with a 50-/spl Omega/ load termination. When used in an analog microwave fiber-optic link without amplification, a RF link efficiency as high as -38 dB is achieved at 10 mW input optical carrier power. These analog link characteristics are the first reported using MQW electroabsorption waveguide modulators at 1.32 /spl mu/m.     

Analog performance of an ultrafast sampled-time all-optical fiber XPM wavelength converter

Analog performance of an all-optical ultrafast wavelength converter is measured and reported for the first time. The wavelength-conversion process is based on nonlinear cross-phase modulation in an optical fiber combined with an optical filter to convert phase modulation to amplitude modulation. The spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of the converter is measured to be 82 dB/spl middot/Hz/sup 2/3/. We define a new metric called the SFDR power penalty, which measures the degradation in SFDR relative to baseline the back-to-back analog optical link. The SFDR power penalty was measured to be 5 dB/spl middot/Hz/sup 2/3/ and is shown to be a function of the input optical power. This metric is used to characterize the linear region of the optical wavelength converter.     

Ring-hybrid microwave voltage-variable attenuator using HFET transistors

In this paper, a voltage-variable microwave attenuator circuit is presented. The input signal first enters a rat-race power splitter where a 0/spl deg/ and a 180/spl deg/ pair of signals is generated. The 0/spl deg/ signal passes through a common-gate field-effect transistor (FET) that is fully turned on, with its gate voltage set to 0 V. The 180/spl deg/ signal enters another common-gate transistor biased in the triode region. By changing the gate voltage of the second FET, the amplitude of the 180/spl deg/ signal is varied. The in-phase and out-of-phase signals are summed at the output and variable attenuation is achieved. The concept was demonstrated experimentally from 3.0 to 3.4 GHz and a variable attenuation from 6 to 30 dB was achieved. The phase response is linear over the frequency band and exhibits a group delay of 0.71 ns. The input 1-dB compression point of the attenuator is 0 dBm and the second harmonic suppression is 18.5 dB at 0-dBm input power.     

A 1.4-V 25-Mw 600-MS/s 6-bit folding and interpolating ADC in 0.13-μm CMOS

A 600-MSample/s 6-bit folding and interpolating analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is presented. This ADC with single track-and-hold (T/H) circuits is based on cascaded folding amplifiers and input-connection-improved active interpolating amplifiers. The prototype ADC achieves 5.55 bits of the effective number of bits (ENOB) and 47.84 dB of the spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) at 10-MHz input and 4.3 bit of ENOB and 35.65 dB of SFDR at 200-MHz input with a 500 MS/s sampling rate; it achieves 5.48 bit of ENOB and 43.52 dB of SFDR at 1-MHz input and 4.66 bit of ENOB and 39.56 dB of SFDR at 30. 1-MHz input with a 600-MS/s sampling rate. This ADC has a total power consumption of 25 mW from a 1.4 V supply voltage and occupies 0.17 mm~2 in the 0.13-μm CMOS process.     

2 V-operated InGaP-AlGaAs-InGaAs enhancement-mode pseudomorphic HEMT

A low-voltage single power supply enhancement-mode InGaP-AlGaAs-InGaAs pseudomorphic high-electron mobility transistor (PHEMT) is reported for the first time. The fabricated 0.5/spl times/160 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ device shows low knee voltage of 0.3 V, drain-source current (I/sub DS/) of 375 mA/mm and maximum transconductance of 550 mS/mm when drain-source voltage (V/sub DS/) was 2.5 V. High-frequency performance was also achieved; the cut-off frequency(F/sub t/) is 60 GHz and maximum oscillation frequency(F/sub max/) is 128 GHz. The noise figure of the 160-/spl mu/m gate width device at 17 GHz was measured to be 1.02 dB with 10.12 dB associated gain. The E-mode InGaP-AlGaAs-InGaAs PHEMT exhibits a high output power density of 453 mW/mm with a high linear gain of 30.5 dB at 2.4 GHz. The E-mode PHEMT can also achieve a high maximum power added efficiency (PAE) of 70%, when tuned for maximum PAE.     

AlGaAsSb-InGaAsSb HPTs with high optical gain and wide dynamic range

Novel heterojunction phototransistors based on AlGaAsSb-InGaAsSb material systems are fabricated and their characteristics are demonstrated. Responsivity of a phototransistor is measured with applied bias voltage at four different wavelengths. The maximum responsivity around 1400 A/W and minimum noise equivalent power of 1.83/spl times/10/sup -14/ W/Hz/sup 1/2/ from this phototransistor with bias of 4.0 V at a wavelength of 2.05 /spl mu/m were measured at 20/spl deg/C and -20/spl deg/C, respectively. Noise equivalent power of the phototransistor is considerably lower compared with commercially available InGaAs p-i-n photodiodes. Collector current measurements with applied incident power are performed for two phototransistors. Currents of 400 nA at low intensity of 0.425 /spl mu/W/cm/sup 2/ and of 30 mA at high intensity of 100 mW/cm/sup 2/ are determined. Collector current increases nearly by five orders of magnitude between these two input intensities. High and constant optical gain of 500 in the 0.46-nW to 40-/spl mu/W input power range is achieved, which demonstrates high dynamic range for such devices at these power levels.     

8-GHz CMOS quadrature VCO using transformer-based LC tank

A fully integrated quadrature VCO at 8 GHz is presented. The VCO is implemented using a transformer-based LC tank in 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS technology, in which two VCOs are coupled to generate I-Q signals. The VCO is realized employing the drain-gate transformer feedback configuration proposed here. This makes use of the quality factor enhancement in the resonator using a transformer and the deep switching-off technique by controlling gate bias. By turning off switching transistors of the differential VCO core deeply, the phase noise performance is improved more than 10 dB. The measured phase noise values are -110 and -117 dBc/HZ at the offset frequencies of 600 kHz and 1 MHz respectively. The tuning range of 250 MHz is achieved with the control voltage from 0 to 1 V. The VCO draws 8 mA in two differential core circuits from 3 V supply. When the bias voltage goes down to 2.5 V, the phase noise decrease only 2 dB compared to that of 3 V bias. The VCO performances are compared with previously reported quadrature Si VCOs in 5/spl sim/12 GHz frequency range.     

5.7 GHz low-power variable-gain LNA in 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS

A variable-gain low-noise amplifier (LNA) suitable for low-voltage and low-power operation is designed and implemented in a standard 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS technology. With a current-reused topology, the common-source gain stages are stacked for minimum power dissipation while achieving high small-signal gain. The fully integrated 5.7 GHz LNA exhibits 16.4 dB gain, 3.5 dB noise figure and 8 dB gain tuning range with good input and output return losses. The LNA consumes 3.2 mW DC power from a supply voltage of 1 V. A gain/power quotient of 5.12 dB/mW is achieved in this work.     

Improving the Performance of Sampled-Grating DBR Laser-Based Analog Optical Transmitters

In this paper, the available analog link performance of integrated transmitters containing a sampled-grating distributed Bragg reflector laser, a semiconductor optical amplifier, and a modulator is evaluated. It is found that to provide a link gain and a low-noise figure, an RF preamplifier is required, and for this reason, spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) including a preamplifier has been evaluated. An SFDR of 110-dBHz^2/3, a noise figure of 5.4 dB, and link gain of 6.9 dB at 5 GHz is obtained. It is further investigated how link SFDR can be improved by linearization techniques. Two novel approaches are proposed and demonstrated: first, predistortion by extraction of nonlinear components from an integrated second modulator exposed to the same wavelength, optical power and temperature for matched nonlinear terms; second, a novel linearized modulator configuration balancing electroabsorption and Mach-Zehnder modulation that can reach a null for both second- and third-order intermodulation products at a single bias point.     

Ultra-broadband 20.5-31 GHz monolithically-integrated CMOS power amplifier

A fully monolithically-integrated power amplifier with a bandwidth (-3 dB) from 20.5 to 31 GHz was realised in a 0.13 /spl mu/m standard CMOS technology. A maximum power added efficiency of 13% with a corresponding output power of 13 dBm was achieved at 25.7 GHz with 1.5 V supply voltage.     

Submicron gate Si/sub 3/N/sub 4//AlGaN/GaN-metal-insulator-semiconductor heterostructure field-effect transistors

We present the characteristics of a quarter-micron gate metal-insulator-semiconductor heterostructure field-effect transistor (MISHFET) with Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/ film as a gate insulator. A detailed comparison of the MISHFET and an identical geometry HFET shows them to have the same radio frequency (RF) power gain and cut-off frequency, while the MISHFET has much lower gate-leakage currents and higher RF powers at operating frequencies as high as 26 GHz. The MISHFET gate-leakage currents are well below 100 pA at gate bias values from -10 V to +8 V. At zero gate bias, the drain saturation current is about 0.9 A/mm and it increases to 1.2 A/mm at +8 V gate bias. The output RF power of around 6 W/mm at 40 drain bias was found to be frequency independent in the range of 2 to 26 GHz. This power is 3 dB higher than that from HFET of the same geometry. The intrinsic cutoff frequency is /spl sim/63 GHz for both the HFET and the MISHFET. This corresponds to an average effective electron velocity in the MISHFET channel of 9.9/spl times/10/sup 6/ cm/s. The knee voltage and current saturation mechanisms in submicron MISHFETs and heterostructure field-effect transistors (HFET) are also discussed.     

A 1.8-V 67-mW 10-bit 100-MS/s pipelined ADC using time-shifted CDS technique

A time-shifted correlated double sampling (CDS) technique is proposed in the design of a 10-bit 100-MS/s pipelined ADC. This technique significantly reduces the finite opamp gain error without compromising the conversion speed, allowing the active opamp blocks to be replaced by simple cascoded CMOS inverters. Both high-speed and low-power operation is achieved without compromising the accuracy requirement. An efficient common-mode voltage control is introduced for pseudodifferential architecture which can further reduce power consumption. Fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS process, the prototype 10-bit pipelined ADC occupies 2.5 mm/sup 2/ of active die area. With 1-MHz input signal, it achieves 65-dB SFDR and 54-dB SNDR at 100MS/s. For 99-MHz input signal, the SFDR and SNDR are 63 and 51 dB, respectively. The total power consumption is 67 mW at 1.8-V supply, of which analog portion consumes 45 mW without any opamp current scaling down the pipeline.     

Characterization of the jitter in a mode-locked Er-fiber laser and its application in photonic sampling for analog-to-digital conversion at 10 gsample/s

This paper compares two approaches for evaluating the amplitude and timing jitters of an Er-fiber laser mode-locked at 10 GHz. Using a low-noise oscillator as the clock drive for the mode-locking, relative amplitude jitter was measured as low as 0.0384% and timing jitter as low as 0.0153% (/spl Delta/f=100 Hz-40 MHz). Applying the mode-locked pulse train in a photonic sampling experiment at 10 Gsample/s, a spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) of /spl sim/48.5 dB (over the Nyquist bandwidth of 5 GHz) for multiple analog inputs at L band (1-2.6 GHz). These results correspond to an analog-to-digital conversion resolution of /spl sim/8 SFDR bits at 10 Gsample/s. Finally, the use of "instantaneous companding" is demonstrated to correct for third-order distortions generated by a Mach-Zehnder modulator used in the photonic sampling link.     

AlGaN-GaN HEMTs on Si with power density performance of 1.9 W/mm at 10 GHz

AlGaN-GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) on silicon substrate are fabricated. The device with a gate length of 0.3-/spl mu/m and a total gate periphery of 300 /spl mu/m, exhibits a maximum drain current density of 925 mA/mm at V/sub GS/=0 V and V/sub DS/=5 V with an extrinsic transconductance (g/sub m/) of about 250 mS/mm. At 10 GHz, an output power density of 1.9 W/mm associated to a power-added efficiency of 18% and a linear gain of 16 dB are achieved at a drain bias of 30 V. To our knowledge, these power results represent the highest output power density ever reported at this frequency on GaN HEMT grown on silicon substrates.     

High-performance double-recessed enhancement-mode metamorphic HEMTs on 4-in GaAs substrates

Enhancement-mode InAlAs/InGaAs/GaAs metamorphic HEMTs with a composite InGaAs channel and double-recessed 0.15-/spl mu/m gate length are presented. Epilayers with a room-temperature mobility of 10 000 cm/sup 2//V-s and a sheet charge of 3.5/spl times/10/sup 12/cm/sup -2/ are grown using molecular beam epitaxy on 4-in GaAs substrates. Fully selective double-recess and buried Pt-gate processes are employed to realize uniform and true enhancement-mode operation. Excellent dc and RF characteristics are achieved with threshold voltage, maximum drain current, extrinsic transconductance, and cutoff frequency of 0.3 V, 500 mA/mm, 850 mS/mm, and 128 GHz, respectively, as measured on 100-/spl mu/m gate width devices. The load pull measurements of 300-/spl mu/m gate width devices at 35 GHz yielded a 1-dB compression point output power density of 580 mW/mm, gain of 7.2 dB, and a power-added efficiency of 44% at 5 V of drain bias.     

A fully monolithic 260-/spl mu/W, 1-GHz subthreshold low noise amplifier

A micro-power complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) low-noise amplifier (LNA) is presented based on subthreshold MOS operation in the GHz range. The LNA is fabricated in an 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS process and has a gain of 13.6 dB at 1 GHz while drawing 260 /spl mu/A from a 1-V supply. An unrestrained bias technique, that automatically increases bias currents at high input power levels, is used to raise the input P1dB to -0.2 dBm. The LNA has a measured noise figure of 4.6 dB and an IIP3 of 7.2 dBm.     

DC and RF characteristics of E-mode Ga/sub 0.51/In/sub 0.49/P-In/sub 0.15/Ga/sub 0.85/As pseudomorphic HEMTs

The DC and RF characteristics of Ga/sub 0.49/In/sub 0.51/P-In/sub 0.15/Ga/sub 0.85/As enhancement- mode pseudomorphic HEMTs (pHEMTs) are reported for the first time. The transistor has a gate length of 0.8 /spl mu/m and a gate width of 200 /spl mu/m. It is found that the device can be operated with gate voltage up to 1.6 V, which corresponds to a high drain-source current (I/sub DS/) of 340 mA/mm when the drain-source voltage (V/sub DS/) is 4.0 V. The measured maximum transconductance, current gain cut-off frequency, and maximum oscillation frequency are 255.2 mS/mm, 20.6 GHz, and 40 GHz, respectively. When this device is operated at 1.9 GHz under class-AB bias condition, a 14.7-dBm (148.6 mW/mm) saturated power with a power-added efficiency of 50% is achieved when the drain voltage is 3.5 V. The measured F/sub min/ is 0.74 dB under I/sub DS/=15 mA and V/sub DS/=2 V.