Title :
40 Gb/s PAM-4 Transmitter IC for Long-Wavelength VCSEL Links
Author :
Soenen, Wouter ; Vaernewyck, R. ; Xin Yin ; Spiga, Silvia ; Amann, M.-C. ; Kaur, Kamalpreet S. ; Bakopoulos, Paraskevas ; Bauwelinck, J.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Inf. Technol., Ghent Univ., Ghent, Belgium
Abstract :
Conventional 850 nm multimode fiber links deployed in warehouse-scale data centers will be limited by modal dispersion beyond 10 Gb/s when covering distances up to 1 km. This can be resolved by opting for a single-mode fiber (SMF), but typically requires the use of power-hungry edge-emitting lasers. We investigate the feasibility of a high-efficiency SMF link by reporting a 0.13 μm SiGe BiCMOS laser diode driver optimized for long-wavelength vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). Bit-error rate experiments at 28 and 40 Gb/s up to 1 km of SMF reveal that four-level pulse amplitude modulation can compete with non-return-to-zero in terms of energy efficiency and scalability. With 9.4 pJ/b, the presented transmitter paves the way for VCSEL-based SMF links in data centers.
Keywords :
CMOS integrated circuits; driver circuits; error statistics; optical fibre communication; optical fibre dispersion; optical links; optical transmitters; pulse amplitude modulation; silicon compounds; surface emitting lasers; PAM-four transmitter IC; SiGe; bit rate 28 Gbit/s; bit rate 40 Gbit/s; bit-error rate experiments; four-level pulse amplitude modulation; high-efficiency single-mode fiber link; long-wavelength VCSEL links; modal dispersion; multimode fiber links; power-hungry edge-emitting lasers; silicon-germanium BiCMOS laser diode driver; vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers; warehouse-scale data centers; wavelength 850 nm; Bandwidth; Bit error rate; Integrated circuits; Modulation; Optical signal processing; Optical transmitters; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers; BiCMOS integrated circuits; amplitude modulation; driver circuits; equalizers; optoelectronic devices; vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers;
Journal_Title :
Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LPT.2014.2372041
