A 50-Gb/s High-Sensitivity (−9.2 dBm) Low-Power (7.9 pJ/bit) Optical Receiver Based on 0.18-[Formula Omitted]m SiGe BiCMOS Technology

• Published in: IEEE journal of solid-state circuits Vol. 53; no. 5; p. 1518
• Main Authors: Takemoto, Takashi, Matsuoka, Yasunobu, Yamashita, Hiroki, Lee, Yong, Arimoto, Hideo, Kokubo, Masaru, Tatemi Ido
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) 01.05.2018
• Subjects: Amplification; Automatic control; Bit error rate; Cancellers; Error detection; Gain; High gain; Optical receivers; Power consumption; Power efficiency; Sensitivity analysis; Silicon germanides; Technology assessment; Vibration
• ISSN: 0018-9200; 1558-173X
• DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2018.2791474

A 50-Gb/s optical receiver (RX) based on 0.18-[Formula Omitted] SiGe BiCMOS technology was fabricated and evaluated. To improve the horizontal eye opening and sensitivity of the RX without degrading its power efficiency, it is configured with a two-stage pre-amplifier with high gain (56 dB[Formula Omitted]) and high bandwidth (35 GHz), a high-accuracy automatic decision-threshold control (ATC) consisting of power-supply variation and offset cancellers for improving sensitivity, and a jitter-reduction packaging structure for improving transimpedance flatness. The RX achieves high sensitivity of −9.2 dBm, while its power consumption is 7.9 pJ/bit at a data rate of 50 Gb/s. In 50- and 56-Gb/s transmission tests through a 100-m multi-mode fiber (MMF), it demonstrated error-free operation at the bit error rate (BER) of less than 10–12 with the sensitivities of −9 and −6.1 dBm optical modulation amplitude (OMA). It also demonstrated 300-m error-free MMF transmission (at 50 Gb/s) with the practical sensitivity of −7.6 dBm OMA.