A high-speed energy-efficient inductor-less transimpedance amplifier with adjustable gain for optical chip-to-chip communication

A high-speed transimpedance amplifier (TIA) with adjustable gain, high gain-bandwidth product, high energy efficiency and low noise is presented. The amplifier is designed in a 0.13μm SiGe BiCMOS technology as part of an integrated receiver front-end. A high transimpedance gain over a large bandwidth is achieved with a low stage count topology and without applying area consuming peaking inductors. Measurements of the fabricated chip show a tunable transimpedance gain between 685Ω and 1793Ω as well as a forward gain between 13.5 dB and 15.7 dB over a bandwidth range from 53.8GHz to 6.8GHz, making the TIA well suited for data rates up to 77Gbit/s. With a power consumption of less than 21.2mW from a 3.3V supply the circuit yields a high energy efficiency of 0.28 pJ/bit requiring a chip area of only 0.163mm2 including pads.