Low-noise optical receiver for high-speed optical transmission

This paper describes the design of a low-noise optical receiver using Si bipolar transistors for high-speed optical transmission. The conventional common emitter-common collector circuit (CE-CC pair) and Darlington circuit (transimpedance amplifiers with parallel feedback) are studied. Optimal CE-CC pair collector-biasing current for attaining minimum noise current with a 400-MHz bandwidth is 2.7 mA, and less than 1.2 mA for the Darlington circuit. It is confirmed that the Darlington circuit is better than the CE-CC pair in signal-to-noise ratio by about 1.5 dB. The low-noise Darlington optical receiver with a Ge-avalanche photodiode has achieved an optical sensitiyity of -41 dBm for a 400 Mbit/s RZ pulse with a bit error rate of 10^-10. This is a 2.5-dB improvement in optical sensitivity over that of the conventional CE-CC receiver.     

Design and anaylsis of a 2.5-Gbps optical receiver analog front-end in a 0.35-/spl mu/m digital CMOS technology

This paper presents the design of an optical receiver analog front-end circuit capable of operating at 2.5 Gbit/s. Fabricated in a low-cost 0.35-/spl mu/m digital CMOS process, this integrated circuit integrates both transimpedance amplifier and post limiting amplifier on a single chip. In order to facilitate high-speed operations in a low-cost CMOS technology, the receiver front-end has been designed utilizing several enhanced bandwidth techniques, including inductive peaking and current injection. Moreover, a power optimization methodology for a multistage wide band amplifier has been proposed. The measured input-referred noise of the optical receiver is about 0.8 /spl mu/A/sub rms/. The input sensitivity of the receiver front-end is 16 /spl mu/A for 2.5-Gbps operation with bit-error rate less than 10/sup -12/, and the output swing is about 250 mV (single-ended). The front-end circuit drains a total current of 33 mA from a 3-V supply. Chip size is 1650 /spl mu/m/spl times/1500 /spl mu/m.     

A high-performance optical receiver for 622 Mb/s direct-detectionsystems

A report is presented on the measurement of receiver sensitivity and noise characteristics of a high-performance optical receiver using a low-noise InGaAs avalanche photodiode (APD) and a low-noise high-electron mobility transistor (HEMT). At a bit rate of 622.08 Mb/s and a wavelength of 1.297 μm, the measured receiver sensitivity is -48.3 dBm. This is equivalent to a sensitivity of 155 photons/b and is about 12 dB away from the quantum limit of 10 photons/b     

Si基单片集成850nm光接收芯片研究

设计并制备了一种Si基单片集成850nm光接收芯片,包括"P+/N-EPI/BN+"结构的光电探测器(PD)、跨阻前置放大电路及其后续处理电路。分析了PD的结构,并对其光谱响应及频率响应进行模拟,在2.0V偏压下,PD在850nm的响应度为0.131A/W,截止频率为400 MHz。采用0.5μm BCD(bipolar、CMOS和DMOS)工艺流片,光接收芯片面积约为900μm×1 100μm。测试结果表明,PD暗电流为pA量级,响应度为0.12A/W。光接收芯片在155 Mb/s速率及误码率(BER)小于10-9情况下,灵敏度为-12.0dBm;在622 Mb/s速率及BER小于10-9情况下,灵敏度为-10.0dBm,并能得到清晰的眼图。将该光接收芯片封装后接入光接收模块,进行点对点光互联实验,获得很好的光信号通路。     

Optical preamplifier using optical modulation of amplified spontaneous emission in saturated semiconductor optical amplifier

This paper demonstrates a novel optical preamplifier using optical modulation of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) emitted from a saturated semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). Requirements on optical alignments and antireflection coating for SOAs can be relaxed and the elimination of an optical filter gives us a large tolerance of an input light wavelength in the proposed optical preamplifier. A small-signal gain of a fabricated preamplifier was over 13.5 dB for an input power of below -20 dBm. An optical gain bandwidth was over 60 nm. We measured the small-signal response of the optically modulated ASE. The 3 dB bandwidths at SOA bias currents of 200, 300, and 400 mA were 5.8, 12.6, and 16.5 GHz, respectively. We also investigated improvements in receiver sensitivities with the proposed optical preamplifier. Our calculation shows a possibility of 10 dB improvement in receiver sensitivities by using the optical preamplifier at 10 Gb/s. The measured receiver sensitivity was -22.7 dBm at 10 Gb/s with the optical preamplifier, which is corresponding to an improvement of 2.5 dB in the receiver sensitivity. Further improvements of the receiver sensitivity can be expected by optimizing the structure of SOAs for saturating ASE.     

Wide-band integrated optical receiver with improved dynamic rangeusing a current switch at the input

The front end of optical transmission systems usually consists of a low-noise, wide-band, negative-feedback transimpedance or current amplifier. The dynamic range of current amplifiers can be extended considerably by passing large input currents directly to the output of the amplifier. It is shown that the required current switch does not deteriorate the sensitivity of the receiver. A complete front end, using an external p-i-n photodiode, is integrated in a 2.5-GHz bipolar technology. The receiver has a dynamic range (DR) of 73 dB in a bandwidth of 220 MHz and consumes a supply current of 1.5 mA     

Low-noise optical detection of a 1.1 Gb/s optical data stream

A low-noise, 1.1 Gb/s optical receiver has been built using a silicon a.p.d. and a GaAs f.e.t. The receiver sensitivity was evaluated using error-rate measurements, and for a bit error rate of 10?9, with no fibre, the measured optical sensitivity was ?37.0 dBm. These results are used as a basis for the calculation of maximum repeater spacings for 1.1 Gb/s systems operating at 0.85 ?m and 1.25 ?m wavelengths.     

A monolithic GaAs-on-Si receiver front end for optical interconnectsystems

The authors describe a monolithic technology for integrating GaAs with Si bipolar devices and demonstrate that such integration can provide improved system performance without degrading individual devices. The technology has been used to implement a 1-GHz GaAs/Si optical receiver with an equivalent input noise current density of less than 3 pA/√Hz for midband operation, and less than 4.5 pA/√Hz at 1 GHz. In this receiver an interdigitated GaAs metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetector is combined with a transimpedance preamplifier fabricated in silicon bipolar technology. The measured dark current of the GaAs/Si photodetector is 7 nA. The measured pulse response of an experimental integrated receiver is less than 550 ps FWHM. The integrated front end provides a wideband, low-noise optical receiver for use in local optical interconnections and demonstrates the successful application of integrated GaAs-on-Si technology to optoelectronics     

High-speed, burst-mode, packet-capable optical receiver andinstantaneous clock recovery for optical bus operation

This paper describes an enhanced performance version of a high-speed burst-mode compatible optical receiver and its application to 622-Mb/s optical bus operation in conjunction with an instantaneous clock recovery scheme. The receiver is fabricated in a 12 GHz f_t silicon bipolar technology and consists of a differential transimpedance amplifier with an auto-threshold level controller and a high-speed quantizer. Using an InGaAs avalanche photodiode, the typical burst mode sensitivity is around -34 dBm (10^-9 BER) at bit rates up to 1.5 Gb/s with a dynamic range of 26 db for both pseudorandom and burst signals. The results using a laser beam modulated by a high-speed external modulator indicate that the receiver can be operated at bit rates higher than 2 Gb/s. With a worst-case self-resetting time <50 ns for the threshold control circuit, the receiver is usable for optical packet communication where data signals with varying optical power are employed. This receiver was demonstrated in a 622-Mb/s optical bus application where the clock signal was recovered from the packet data signal using a novel high-speed CMOS instantaneous clock recovery IC     

Low power optical gate HBT driver array for 2.5 Gbit/s ATMswitching

A four element driver array for optical gates in a 2.5 Gbit/s optical ATM switch is presented. The circuit uses a GaAs-GaAlAs heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology. It enables a switching time of <300 ps and current up to 150 mA with <400 mW per gate power consumption     

Low-noise receivers for fiber-optic microwave signal transmission

The problem of low-noise reception of high-frequency narrowband modulated optical radiation is discussed. Relatively simple p-i-n diode/FET based optical receiver structures which achieve good narrowband optical sensitivity are proposed. These receivers achieve good gain and noise performance due to a lossless parallel resonance circuit which shunts the input to the detector and FET. Design characteristics are presented for S-band receivers constructed using low-capacitance photodetectors, and GaAs MESFETs. Experimental realizations of these receiver designs, which achieve conversion efficiencies on the order of 250 V/W and optical noise equivalent power of less than 10 pW/√Hz for 0.8-μm radiation, are reported. Scaling rules which should be of use in optimizing the performance of more advanced designs are stated and other types of receiver structures which can be expected to yield high narrowband optical sensitivity are discussed     

High-sensitivity receiver optical preamplifiers

High-receiver sensitivities of -40.9, -44.3, -46.2, -49.0, and -51.3 dBm are reported at 2.4, 1.8, 1.2, 0.62, and 0.14 Gb/s, respectively, using a low-noise, 980-nm diode-pumped, erbium fiber amplifier in the receiver preamplifier configuration with all field usable components. This corresponds to a best sensitivity of 156 photons/bit at the input of the optical amplifier (96 photons/bit at the input of the erbium-doped fiber). Selection of a low-chirp laser-diode transmitter, an optical filter with a bandwidth appropriate for filtering the signal, and a low-noise electrical amplifier with appropriate bandwidth in the post detection stage are all critical to achieve very high-receiver sensitivities     

High-performance balanced dual-detector GaAs IC receiver for 565 Mbit/s optical heterodyne detection

A high-performance balanced dual-detector receiver which uses a low-noise GaAs IC transimpedance preamplifier has been developed for a 565 Mbit/s optical fibre DPSK heterodyne system. This receiver has achieved the highest sensitivity reported at this bit rate: -51-9 dBm.<>     

Receiver design for high-speed optical-fiber systems

The technology of optical-fiber systems is advancing rapidly. Parallel to the development of long-haul telecommunication systems in the gigabits per second data rates operating in the long-wavelength region is the wide penetration of optical-fiber systems in local area networks, video trunking and distribution, sensors, etc. These diversified applications impose different and often conflicting constraints on the optical receiver. This paper re-examines the optical receiver design in view of these different requirements, namely, high receiver sensitivity, wide dynamic range, transparent to the operating bit rate, unrestricted data format, and fast acquisition time. Design tradeoffs between conflicting receiver requirements are considered in detail. In particular, the sensitivity of high-capacity long-wavelength transmission systems is emphasized. The state-of-the-art performance of photodetectors and low-noise amplifiers is discussed. We show that dark current of avalanche photodiodes (APD's) is the main factor limiting the sensitivity of long-wavelength optical receivers. In addition, as an example, we report on the design and experimental performance of a hybridized low-noise optical receiver amplifier capable of more than 2-Gbits/s operation. The input noise spectral density achieved is 9 pA/sqrt{Hz}with a noise corner frequency of 920 MHz, corresponding to an equivalent noise resistance of 120 Ω.     

DC-1 Gb/s burst-mode compatible receiver for optical busapplications

The characteristics and performance of a high-speed, burst-mode compatible receiver for optical bus or packet communications are described. It employs an Si bipolar differential transimpedance amplifier, an auto-threshold tracking level control circuit, and a DC-coupled decision circuit (ECL compatible quantizer). To cope with intermittent data packets, the threshold control circuit can capture data amplitude and set the logic threshold in about 1 ns. Using an avalanche photodiode, the typical receiver sensitivity is -37.5 dBm (10 ^-9 BER) at bit rates up to 900 Mb/s, with a dynamic range of 23 dB for both pseudorandom and burst-mode signals. At 1 Gb/s, the sensitivity is -35 dBm. With a worst-case reset time <100 ns for the threshold control circuit, this receiver can be used for optical bus applications where data signals with varying optical power are employed     

A direct-conversion receiver for the 3G WCDMA standard

A highly integrated direct-conversion receiver that satisfies requirements of the third-generation wide-band code-division multiple-access mobile phone standard is described. The receiver integrated circuit includes the front-end low-noise amplifier, downconversion mixers, baseband variable-gain amplifiers, channel-select filters, and the frequency synthesizer. External components are limited to matching elements required for the low-noise amplifier and the mixers and two passive band-select filters. The receiver is implemented in a SiGe BiCMOS process and consumes a total current of 46 mA from a 2.7-V supply.     

Modulation and detection characteristics of optical continuous phase FSK transmission system

The modulation and differential detection characteristics of optical CPFSK transmission systems are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The error rate expressions of differentially detected CPFSK are derived by considering phase noise of LD's. It is clear that the linewidth requirement is less than0.68 mpercent of the bit rate, wheremis modulation index. The performances of CPFSK are then experimentally presented at 400 Mbit/s using external optical feedback DFB LD's as the optical source. A beat spectral linewidth of less than 200 kHz for the transmitter and local oscillator LD's is achieved. The frequency response nonuniformity of frequency modulation efficiency is compensated by electrical circuits within 3 dB and 60°. To reduce IF thermal noise, a resonance-type preamplifier is used, with a 4.8 pA/sqrt{Hz}average input noise current density, and a receiver sensitivity 1.3 dB better than the conventional preamplifier. Differential detection of the 400-Mbit/s CPFSK modulation is performed. The generation of CPFSK is confirmed by good correlation between the output spectrum and theory. The average received optical power at a 10^-9bit error rate is -49.9 dBm which improves direct detection by 10.3 dB. No additional power penalties due to 290-km transmission exist.     

Low-power fully integrated and tunable CMOS RF wireless receiver for ISM band consumer applications

A 0.25-/spl mu/m single-chip CMOS single-conversion tunable low intermediate frequency (IF) receiver operated in the 902-928-MHz industrial, scientific, and medical band is proposed. A new 10.7-MHz IF section that contains a limiting amplifier and a frequency modulated/frequency-shift-key demodulator is designed. The frequency to voltage conversion gain of the demodulator is 15 mV/kHz and the dynamic range of the limiting amplifier is around 80 dB. The sensitivity of the IF section including the demodulator and limiting amplifier is -72 dBm. With on-chip tunable components in the low-power low-noise amplifier (LNA) and LC-tank voltage-controlled oscillator circuit, the receiver measures an RF gain of 15 dB at 915 MHz, a sensitivity of -80 dBm at 0.1% bit-error rate, an input referred third-order intercept point of -9 dBm, and a noise figure of 5 dB with a current consumption of 33 mA and a 2450 /spl mu/m/spl times/ 2450 /spl mu/m chip area.     

A 1.3/1.55-μm wavelength-division multiplexing optical moduleusing a planar lightwave circuit for full duplex operation

We developed a hybrid integrated optical module for 1.3/1.55-μm wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) full-duplex operation. The optical circuit was designed to suppress the optical and electrical crosstalk using a wavelength division multiplexing filter, and an optical crosstalk of -43 dB and an electrical crosstalk of -105 dB were achieved with a separation between the transmitter laser diode and the receiver photodiode of more than 9 mm. We used the optical circuit design to fabricate an optical module with a bare chip preamplifier in a package. This module exhibited a full duplex operation of 156 Mbit/s with a minimum sensitivity of -35.2 dBm at a bit error rate of 10^-10     

InGaAs avalanche photodiodes for 1 ?m wavelength region

A low-noise, low-dark-current and high-speed InGaAs avalanche photodiode (APD) has been designed and fabricated. The diode has a planar structure and is composed of InP/InGaAsP/InGaAs/InP layers grown on (111)A oriented InP. At a multiplication of 10, the diode exhibited excess noise factor of 5 and cutoff frequency of more than 1 GHz. Dark current was 10 nA near breakdown voltage. The diode has been tested in an experimental optical receiver in the gigabit range (time slot 0.63 ns) and 1.3 ?m. The receiver sensitivity of ?29.2 dBm was obtained at an error rate of 10?11.