Broadband transimpedance amplifier in 0.35-μm SiGe BiCMOS technology for 10-Gb/s optical receiver analog front-end application

A 10-Gb/s fully integrated optical receiver analog frontend was realized in a commercial 0.35-mum 50-GHz f_T SiGe BiCMOS technology. An input capacitance immunization technique was used to diminish the large input parasitic capacitance of the transimpedance amplifier to achieve a high-gain, wide-bandwidth, low-noise performance. The overall transimpedance gain is 107.3-dBOmega, and the -3 dB bandwidth is 8.85-GHz with 1.1 pF input parasitic capacitances. The measured results demonstrate a differential output swing of 842 mV_p-p with 50-Omega output load, a peak-to-peak jitter (jitter_p-p) of 13.22 ps, and a sensitivity of -16.4 dBm at a bit error ratio (BER) of 10^-12 with a 2³¹-1 PRBS test pattern. The total circuit, including output buffer, dissipates 195 mW under 3-V supply and occupies 0.7 x 0.7 mm² chip area.