This paper presents a low noise, 1.25Gb/s and 124dBΩ front-end amplifier that is designed and fabricated in 0.25μm CMOS technology for optical communication applications. Active inductor shunt peaking technology and noise optimization are used in the design of a trans-impedance amplifier,which overcomes the problem of inadequate bandwidth caused by the large parasitical capacitor of the CMOS photodiode. Experimental results indicate that with a parasitical capacitance of 2pF,this circuit works at 1.25Gb/s. A clear eye diagram is obtained with an input optical signal of - 17dBm. With a power supply of 3.3V, the front-end amplifier consumes 122mW and provides a 660mV differential output.
A 12 Gbit/s limiting amplifier for fiber-optic transmission system is realized in a 2μm GaAs HBT technology. The whole circuit consists of an input buffer, three similar amplifier cells, an output buffer for driving 50 ft transmission lines and a pair of feedback networks for offset cancellation. At a positive supply voltage of 2 V and a negative supply voltage of - 2V, the power dissipation is about 280 mW. The small-signal gain is higher than 46 dB and the input dynamic range is about 40 dB with a constant single-ended output voltage swing of 400 mV. Satisfactory eye-diagrams are obtained at the bit rate of 12 Gbit/s limited by the test set-up. The chip area is 1.15 mm ×0.7 mm.
