Low-voltage low-power CMOS receiver front-end for gigabit short-reach optical communications

ABSTRACT

This article presents a new CMOS receiver analog front-end for short-reach high-speed optical communications, which compensates the limited product bandwidth length of 1-mm step-index plastic optical fiber (SI-POF) channels (45 MHz · 100 m) and the required large-diameter high-capacitance Si PIN photodetector (0.8 mm–3 pF). The proposed architecture, formed by a transimpedance amplifier and a continuous-time equalizer, has been designed in a standard 0.18-µm CMOS process with a single supply voltage of only 1 V, targeting gigabit transmission for simple no-return-to-zero modulation consuming less than 23 mW. Experimental results validate the approach for cost-effective gigabit SI-POF transmission. Comparative analysis with previously reported POF receivers has been carried out by introducing a useful figure of merit. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.