SiGe driver circuit with high output amplitude operating up to 23 Gb/s

Author

Schmid, R. ; Meister, T.F. ; Rest, M. ; Rein, H.-M.

Author_Institution

Ruhr-Univ., Bochum, Germany

Volume

34

Issue

6

fYear

1999

fDate

6/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

886

Lastpage

891

Abstract

A high-speed driver circuit is presented with special regard to layout aspects. The IC, which was fabricated in an advanced SiGe bipolar technology, was developed for driving external modulators in a 20 Gb/s fiber-optic time division multiplex transmission system but can also be used as an output stage of multipurpose pulse generators. Measurements on mounted chips show clear eye diagrams up to 23 Gb/s data rate and high single-ended and differential output swings of 3.5 and 7 V_p-p, respectively, at 50 Ω external load. To the best of the authors´ knowledge, this is the highest voltage swing reported so far for a silicon-based driver circuit at comparable operating speed

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; bipolar integrated circuits; driver circuits; high-speed integrated circuits; optical communication equipment; optical modulation; pulse generators; semiconductor materials; time division multiplexing; 20 Gbit/s; 23 Gbit/s; IC layout; SiGe; SiGe bipolar technology; SiGe driver circuit; external modulators; fiber-optic TDM transmission system; high output amplitude; high-speed driver circuit; multipurpose pulse generators; output stage; time division multiplex transmission; Bipolar integrated circuits; Driver circuits; Gallium arsenide; Germanium silicon alloys; HEMTs; High speed integrated circuits; Microelectronics; Semiconductor device measurement; Silicon germanium; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/4.766824

Filename

766824