A 1.8 Gb/s fully integrated optical receiver for OOK visible light communication in 0.35 μm CMOS

This paper presents a fully integrated optical receiver for On-Off-Keying (OOK) visible-light communication (VLC) links. The circuit is implemented in AMS 0.35μm technology, with the OPTO process option allowing for high-quality photo-detectors integration. The implemented receiver exhibits a low input referred noise density of 5 pA/VHz to meet the sensitivity requirements of free-space optical wireless links in the visible spectrum. The receiver is tested as a part of an optical setup at 46 cm distance from a 680-nm laser-diode source. A measured 1.8 Gb/s data-rate with a bit-error-rate of 5×10−5 is achieved through the use of high bandwidth circuit design techniques and a programmable integrated equalizer function. The receiver draws 65 mA from a 3.3 V DC voltage supply. The die size is 1 mm × 0.8 mm.