A 10-Gb/s silicon bipolar IC for PRBS testing

A 10 Gb/s silicon bipolar IC for pseudorandom binary sequence (PRBS) testing was fabricated and tested. The IC features PRBS generation of the sequences of length 2¹⁵-1 and 2²³-1 b up to 10 Gb/s according to CCITT recommendations. Furthermore, the IC is capable of analyzing PRB sequences of the same length and generation polynomials so that a full test of components is possible. In addition, a new PRBS test word synchronization can be provided between two chips for external multiplexing of the sequences up to 40 Gb/s. The IC can be connected to a standard PC, so evaluation of the error test data can be performed in a flexible way. The IC was fabricated with the HP25 process of Hewlett Packard company, the chip size is 32 mm², and it consumes 6.2 W at the nominal supply voltage of -5 V