A low-power and high-frequency CMOS transceiver for chip-to-chip interconnection

In this paper, we developed a low-power and high-frequency transceiver by using the TSMC 0.35 um CMOS single-poly-four-metal technology. The proposed transceiver includes a photo-detector and a laser diode driver where the photodiode and laser diode can be packaged by using the flip-chip connections. The proposed photo-detector indirectly senses the photo current and uses a bias voltage to control a current source and to provide an adequate reversed bias voltage of the photodiode. The laser diode driver is implemented by using a current mirror and two gate-control transistors. A prototype chip of two 2×2 receivers and two 2×2 transmitters are implemented with a die size of 2.4 mm×2.4 mm where the CMOS photodiodes with ring-type electrodes are designed. At a supply voltage of 3.3 V, the proposed photo-detector and laser diode driver can be operated at a clock frequency of 1 GHz with power dissipation of 3.8 mW and 5.0 mW, respectively, where the photodiode provides 100 μA and the laser diode has a threshold current of 0.6 mA for a light wavelength of 850 nm. Therefore, the proposed transceiver can be widely used in low-power and high-frequency chip-to-chip interconnection systems