Thermo-optical modulation at /spl lambda/=1.5 /spl mu/m in an /spl alpha/-SiC-/spl alpha/-Si-/spl alpha/-SiC planar guided-wave structure

A planar waveguide based on an amorphous silicon-amorphous silicon carbide heterostructure is proposed for the realization of passive and active optical components at the wavelengths /spl lambda/=1.3-1.5 /spl mu/m. The waveguide has been realized by low temperature plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and is compatible with the standard microelectronic technologies. Thermo-optical induced modulation at /spl lambda/=1.5 /spl mu/m is demonstrated in this waveguide. Numerical simulations predict that operation frequencies of about 3 MHz are possible. The measurements have also allowed the determination of the previously unknown thermo-optical coefficient of undoped amorphous silicon at this wavelength.     

A 14-bit high-temperature /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator in standard CMOS

Experimental verification is given for the use of /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulation for high-temperature applications (/spl ges/approximately 150/spl deg/C) in a standard CMOS process. Switched-capacitor circuits are used to implement a second-order single-stage and a third-order 2-1 MASH /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator with single-bit quantization. The two modulators have an oversampling ratio of 256 with an input signal bandwidth of 500 Hz. The modulators were fabricated in a 1.5-/spl mu/m standard CMOS technology. A fully differential signal path and near minimum sized switches are used to mitigate the effect of large junction-to-substrate leakage current present at high temperatures. Experimental results show both modulators are capable of over 14 bits of resolution at 225/spl deg/C and over 13 bits of resolution at 255/spl deg/C. Results show that the single-stage modulator is more resistant to high-temperature circuit impairment than is the MASH cascaded structure.     

High-frequency modulation characteristics of 1.3-/spl mu/m InGaAs quantum dot lasers

In this letter, we report results of small-signal modulation characteristics of self-assembled 1.3-/spl mu/m InGaAs-GaAs quantum dot (QD) lasers at room temperature. The narrow ridge-waveguide lasers were fabricated with multistack InGaAs self-assembled QDs in active region. A high characteristic temperature of T/sub o/=210 K with threshold current density of 200A/cm/sup 2/ was obtained. Small-signal modulation bandwidth of f/sub -3 dB/=12 GHz was measured at 300 K with differential gain of dg/dn/spl cong/2.4/spl times/10/sup -14/ cm/sup 2/ from detailed characteristics. We observed that a limitation of modulation bandwidth in high current injection appeared with gain saturation. This property can direct future high-speed QD laser design.     

High performance 1.28 /spl mu/m GaInNAs double quantum well lasers

The use of multiple quantum wells and GaAs barriers favours the temperature stability and modulation bandwidth of GaInNAs lasers. It is shown that a very low threshold current density and a high characteristic temperature can be achieved for GaInNAs/GaAs double quantum well lasers, emitting at 1.28 /spl mu/m, when grown by molecular beam epitaxy under favourable conditions.     

High-speed Modulation of InGaAs: Sb-GaAs-GaAsP quantum-well vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with 1.27-/spl mu/m emission wavelength

1.27-/spl mu/m InGaAs: Sb-GaAs-GaAsP vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) were grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition and exhibited excellent performance and temperature stability. The threshold current changes from 1.8 to 1.1 mA and the slope efficiency falls less than /spl sim/35% as the temperature raised from room temperature to 70/spl deg/C. With a bias current of only 5 mA, the 3-dB modulation frequency response was measured to be 8.36 GHz, which is appropriate for 10-Gb/s operation. The maximal bandwidth is measured to be 10.7 GHz with modulation current efficiency factor (MCEF) of /spl sim/5.25 GHz/(mA)/sup 1/2/. These VCSELs also demonstrate high-speed modulation up to 10 Gb/s from 25/spl deg/C to 70/spl deg/C.     

Efficient Modulation of InP-based 1.3-/spl mu/m VCSELs with AsSb-based DBRs

We demonstrate efficient error-free 3.125-Gb/s modulation of InP-based 1.3-/spl mu/m vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with AsSb-based distributed Bragg reflectors up to 60/spl deg/C. These devices demonstrated high differential efficiencies [>60% at room temperature (RT)], which resulted in a required bias current for modulation of only 5.9 mA. The measured extinction ratios were greater than 8 dB up to 60/spl deg/C with a peak-to-peak drive voltage of only 800 mV. The 3-dB-down RT small-signal bandwidth was 4.4 GHz at a bias of 5.9 mA.     

360/spl deg/ Varactor Linear Phase Modulator

Theory is presented which 1) derives the circuit impedance requirements to match the nonlinearity of the varactor reactance-versus-voltage curve to the tangent /spl theta/ curve to obtain 180/spl deg/ linear phase modulation from one diode; 2) gives the value and position of a resistor to make insertion loss invariant with phase; and 3) derives the circuit requirements for combining two 180/spl deg/ diode phase moduIators in an admittance adding network to obtain 360/spl deg/ phase modulation. Experiments are disclosed rising series tuning at 1 GHz providing 360/spl deg/ phase modulation within /spl plusmn/ 3.0 percent of linearity, and using shunt tuning at 5 GHz providing 360/spl deg/ phase modulation within /spl plusmn/ 3.3 percent of linearity. A discussion is given of the application of the modulators to the serrodyne function.     

Low-chirp and high-power 1.55-/spl mu/m strained-quantum-well complex-coupled DFB laser

High-power, low-chirp, and low-threshold current characteristics of 1.55 /spl mu/m complex-coupled compressively strained InGaAsP quantum-well DFB laser with a loss grating are presented. Kink-free light-current characteristics with single-mode power over 40 mW are demonstrated for uncoated devices. A relatively low threshold current of 10 mA and a high slope efficiency of 0.23 W/A have been obtained even with the loss grating employed. Stable single-mode emission was demonstrated with a side mode suppression ratio up to 54 dB, a low chirp of less than 0.3 nm under 1 Gb/s pseudorandom digital modulation and a spectral linewidth of 8 MHz.     

A 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS offset-PLL upconversion modulation loop IC for DCS1800 transmitter

A DCS1800 offset-phase-locked-loop upconversion modulation loop integrated circuit (IC) fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology is presented in this paper. This IC operates at 2.8-V supply voltage with a current consumption of 36 mA. The measured root-mean-square and peak phase errors of the Gaussian minimum shift keying (GMSK) transmission signal are 1.6/spl deg/ and 4/spl deg/, respectively. It is shown that such circuits can be implemented in CMOS process with current dissipation and performance comparable to BiCMOS chips. Advantages of upconversion modulation loop and design issues of I/Q modulators are also described.     

Hybrid /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulators with adaptive calibration

This paper describes an architecture for stable high-order /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulation. The architecture is based on a hybrid /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator, wherein hybrid integrators replace conventional analog integrators. The hybrid integrator, which is a combination of an analog integrator and a digital integrator, offers an increased dynamic range and helps make the resulting high-order /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator stable. However, the hybrid /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator relies on precise matching of analog and digital paths. In this paper, a calibration technique to alleviate possible mismatch between analog and digital paths is proposed. The calibration adaptively adjusts the digital integrators so that their transfer functions match the transfer functions of corresponding analog integrators. Through behavioral-level simulations of fourth-order /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulators, the calibration technique is verified.     

Very-low-threshold, highly efficient, and low-chirp 1.55-/spl mu/m complex-coupled DFB lasers with a current-blocking grating

Low-threshold current DFB lasers have been fabricated based on a complex-coupled structure with a current blocking grating. A threshold current as low as 5 mA was obtained, which enabled high temperature operation up to 105/spl deg/C. Asymmetric facet coatings were applied to obtain a high efficiency of 0.3 W/A. The strained InGaAsP MQW active region and the antiphase coupling has resulted in a low modulation chirping. By direct modulation of the device at 2.488 Gb/s and using optical amplifiers, we have demonstrated digital transmission over a 235 km-long standard single-mode fiber with a power penalty of 1.55 dB.     

Breaking the feedback loop of a class of /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ A/D converters

/spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulation is the currently successful technique used to perform high resolution analog-to-digital conversion. In spite of its practical success, its theoretical signal analysis has remained limited because a /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator contains of a feedback loop that includes a nonlinear operation, i.e., the amplitude discretization or quantization. The feedback allows us to use oversampling to compensate for the limitations of the quantizer in resolution and in precision, which are typical of analog circuits. However, because of the lack of signal analysis, it is still not clear how much resolution of conversion can be gained as a function of the oversampling. We show that for a large class of /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulators, the feedback loop theoretically yields an equivalent feedforward signal flow graph, at least for constant inputs. This is possible thanks to remarkable modulo properties of these modulators. This equivalence can be asymptotically extrapolated to time-varying inputs with increasing oversampling. Although the exact components of the equivalent graph are not currently known in general, the theoretical structure of the feedforward graph is sufficient to point out misconceptions in the current knowledge on the final resolution of an nth-order /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator. Specifically, except when the modulator is "ideal", the global resolution of conversion increases by n bits per octave of oversampling, instead of the currently believed rate of n+(1/2) bits/octave.     

Multiplexing of millimeter-wave signals for fiber-radio links by direct modulation of a two-mode locked Fabry-Pe/spl acute/rot laser

In this paper, we introduce generation of multiplexed signals on the millimeter-wave bands for fiber-radio systems where an optical millimeter-wave generator is based on a two-mode locked Fabry-Pe/spl acute/rot (FP) slave laser, whose injection current is directly modulated by a signal source. We qualitatively consider the distortion of the millimeter-wave signals from the FP slave laser. The distortion components on the millimeter-wave bands are induced from the simultaneous modulation of the locked modes and the nonlinear modulation response of the FP laser. Two-tone modulation of the locked FP laser is examined to evaluate the dynamic range of the millimeter-wave signals against the second- and third-order distortion components. We also perform fiber transmission of three 156-Mb/s-BPSK signals on the 60-GHz band to demonstrate fiber-radio down-link systems. The total capacity of the down-link system is discussed. In addition, two methods for multicarrier generation on the millimeter-wave bands are proposed. Multicarrier generators supported by these methods can be used as local signals for up-link millimeter-wave signals. The first method is based on multitone modulation of the FP slave laser. We attempt the down-conversion of a 52-Mb/s ASK signal on the 60-GHz band by using the millimeter-wave local signals. The second method depends on the distorted modulation of the FP slave laser by using a single continuous wave signal where the DC-bias level of the FP laser's injection current is partly under the threshold value. We confirm that five carriers on the 60-GHz band are effectively generated by using the second method. Furthermore, the influences of the chromatic dispersion effects on the millimeter-wave local signals are investigated for both methods.     

Integrated stereo /spl Delta//spl Sigma/ class D amplifier

A 2/spl times/40 W class D amplifier chip is realized in 0.6-/spl mu/m BCDMOS technology, integrating two delta-sigma (/spl Delta//spl Sigma/) modulators and two full H-bridge switching output stages. Analog feedback from H-bridge outputs helps achieve 67-dB power supply rejection ratio, 0.001% total harmonic distortion, and 104-dB dynamic range. The modulator clock rate is 6 MHz, but dynamically adjusted quantizer hysteresis reduces output data rate to 450 kHz, helping achieve 88% power efficiency. At AM radio frequencies, the modulator output spectrum contains a single peak, but is otherwise tone-free, unlike conventional pulse-width modulation (PWM) modulators which contain energetic tones at harmonics of the PWM clock frequency.     

High-order electromechanical /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulation in micromachined inertial sensors

Analysis of second-order electromechanical sigma-delta (/spl Sigma//spl Delta/) inertial sensors shows that in-band quantization error introduces a resolution penalty, which cannot be eliminated by oversampling. In addition, a tradeoff between resolution and phase compensation forces such systems to operate with reduced phase margin. This paper introduces high-order electromechanical /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulation as an approach, which eliminates the quantization noise overhead and allows for increased phase compensation without degrading the resolution. Quasi-linear analysis is used to evaluate the contribution of the individual noise sources to the output of the system and to examine the effect of noise interaction on the behavior of electromechanical /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulators.     

Quasi-equivalent feedforward system in asymptotic /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulation

It was previously shown that sigma-delta (/spl Sigma//spl Delta/) modulators of "asymptotic" type theoretically yield an equivalent feedforward system where the recursive nonlinear mechanisms are extracted from the feedback loop and reduced to a memoryless function. With time-varying inputs, we show in this paper, partially by mathematical derivations and partially by experiment, that this system is quasi-equivalent to the original modulator in a sense that we explain. This reduction of the nonlinear mechanisms should permit more refined modeling of the /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ errors in future research, with a better account of the original nonlinearities of asymptotic /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulation.     

30-GHz bandwidth 1.55-/spl mu/m strain-compensated InGaAlAs-InGaAsP MQW laser

High-speed 1.55 /spl mu/m laser diodes with a 3-dB modulation bandwidths of 30 GHz were fabricated by using short-cavity mushroom structures with undoped, strain-compensated InGaAlAs-InGaAsP twenty-quantum-well active regions. The bandwidths were achieved at low bias current of 100 mA. The laser exhibited a high differential gain of 1.54/spl times/10/sup -15/ cm/sup 2/ and a small K factor of 0.135 ns. These results were achieved by using an In/sub 0.386/Ga/sub 0.465/AlAs barrier with 0.83% tensile strain to reduce the thermal emission time of holes from wells and hence the hole transport time.     

A true-1-V 300-/spl mu/W CMOS-subthreshold log-domain hearing-aid-on-chip

This paper presents a true very low-voltage low-power complete analog hearing-aid system-on-chip as a demonstrator of novel analog CMOS circuit techniques based on log companding processing and using MOS transistors operating in subthreshold. Low-voltage circuit implementations are given for all of the required functions including amplification and automatic gain control filtering, generation, and pulse-duration modulation. Based on these blocks, a single 1-V 300-/spl mu/A application specific integrated circuit integrating a complete hearing aid in a standard 1.2-/spl mu/m CMOS technology is presented along with exhaustive experimental data. To the authors' knowledge, the presented system is the only CMOS hearing aid with true internal operation at the battery supply voltage and with one of the lowest current consumptions reported in literature. The resulting low-voltage CMOS circuit techniques may also be applied to the design of A/D converters for digital hearing aids.     

120/spl deg/C 10-gb/s uncooled direct Modulated 1.3-/spl mu/m AlGaInAs MQW DFB laser diodes

A 1.3-/spl mu/m AlGaInAs multiquantum well ridge waveguide distributed feedback laser diode was developed. By forming n-InGaAsP grating in the n-InP cladding layer close to the active region, accumulation of the holes in the grating layer was reduced and over 5 mW of output power was obtained at 120/spl deg/C. Clear eye opening was confirmed with no mask hits for OC-192 under 10-Gb/s direct modulation at the temperature up to 120/spl deg/C.     

Doping-type dependence of turn-on delay time in 1.3-/spl mu/m InGaAsP-InP modulation-doped strained quantum-well lasers

The dependence of turn-on delay time on doping type in 1.3-/spl mu/m InGaAsP-InP modulation-doped (MD) strained quantum-well (QW) lasers is theoretically investigated, based on the detailed band structure model including the band mixing effects. It is found that the turn-on delay time in n-type MD lasers is reduced to 1/4 that of undoped lasers due to both a lower threshold current and a reduced carrier lifetime. The reduction of the delay time is smaller in p-type MD lasers, however, because of the increased threshold current. These results show that the n-type MD-QW lasers are superior for high-speed modulation under zero-bias conditions.