A silicon bipolar chipset for fiber-optic applications to 2.5 Gb/s

A silicon bipolar chip set for fiber-optic applications to 2.5 Gb/s, which consists of a transimpedance amplifier (TZA), a decision circuit (DEC), and a laser-diode driver (LDD), is presented. The TZA has 1.7 GHz bandwidth with 3.5 pA/ square root Hz equivalent input-current noise. The topology consists of a Darlington input stage and a class AB output stage. The laser-diode driver functions up to a 1.5 Gb/s data rate with 50 mA modulation and 50 mA prebias current levels. The decision circuit works up to a 2.5 Gb/s data rate, with 10 mV/sub pp/ input sensitivity. All the integrated circuits operate from a single 5 V power supply. A minimum of external components are required. A nonpolysilicon-emitter production process is used, with a minimum 20*30 mil die size. >