LDLA14: a 14 Gbps optical transceiver ASIC in 55 nm for NICA multi purpose detector project

This paper presents the design and test results of a 14 Gbps optical transceiver ASIC (LDLA14) fabricated in a 55 nm CMOS technology for NICA Multi Purpose Detector (MPD) project. The LDLA14 is a single-channel bidirectional (1Tx + 1Rx) optical transceiver ASIC, including a Laser Driver (LD) module and a Limiting Amplifier (LA) module. It would drive the Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) of Transmitter Optical Sub-Assembly (TOSA) and receive signals from Photo Diode (PD) of Receiver Optical Sub-Assembly (ROSA), respectively. In the LDLA14, a novel structure of capacitive coupling pre-emphasis is proposed in the output driver of LD to obtain peaking effect without sacrifice the modulation current swing. A shared inductor technology and a Continuous Time Linear Equalizer (CTLE) pre-emphasis structure are added in the output buffer of LA to improve the quality of the output eye diagram. The dimension of LDLA14 is 1.5 mm × 1.3 mm, and the power consumption is 178 mW. The Peak-to-Peak Jitter (PPJ) and Root-Mean-Square Jitter (RMSJ) of the 14 Gbps optical eye diagram of LD in the Tx direction are 22.5 ps and 3.5 ps, respectively. The PPJ and RMSJ of the 14 Gbps electrical eye diagram of LA in the Rx direction are 23.1 ps and 4.7 ps, respectively. The BER tests have been conducted in Tx, Rx directions and the Tx-Rx loop condition, and the BER less than 10−12 is achieved in all tests.

A CMOS Optoelectronic Receiver IC with an On-Chip Avalanche Photodiode for Home-Monitoring LiDAR Sensors

This paper presents an optoelectronic receiver (Rx) IC with an on-chip avalanche photodiode (APD) realized in a 0.18-mm CMOS process for the applications of home-monitoring light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors, where the on-chip CMOS P+/N-well APD was implemented to avoid the unwanted signal distortion from bondwires and electro-static discharge (ESD) protection diodes. Various circuit techniques are exploited in this work, such as the feedforward transimpedance amplifier for high gain, and a limiting amplifier with negative impedance compensation for wide bandwidth. Measured results demonstrate 93.4-dBW transimpedance gain, 790-MHz bandwidth, 12-pA/√Hz noise current spectral density, 6.74-mApp minimum detectable signal that corresponds to the maximum detection range of 10 m, and 56.5-mW power dissipation from a 1.8-V supply. This optoelectronic Rx IC provides a potential for a low-cost low-power solution in the applications of home-monitoring LiDAR sensors.

A low-phase noise D-band signal source based on 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS and 0.15 µm AlGaN/GaN HEMT technologies

This paper reports on a record-low-phase noise D-band signal source with 5 dBm output power, and 1.3 GHz tuning range. The source is based on the unconventional combination of a fundamental frequency 23 GHz oscillator in 150 nm AlGaN/GaN HEMT technology followed by a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS MMIC including a sixtupler and an amplifier. The amplifier operates in compression mode as power-limiting amplifier, to equalize the source output power so that it is nearly independent of the oscillator's gate and drain bias voltages used for tuning the frequency of the source. The choice of using a GaN HEMT oscillator is motivated by the need for a low oscillator noise floor, which recently has been demonstrated as a bottle-neck for data rates in wideband millimeter-wave communication systems. The phase noise performance of this signal source is −128 dBc/Hz at 10 MHz-offset. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this result is the lowest reported phase noise of D-band signal source.