Co-design of a differential transimpedance amplifier and balanced photodetector for a sub-pJ/bit silicon photonics receiver

Abstract

This paper presents the design and implementation of a fully differential optical receiver, which is aimed for short reach intensity modulation and direct detection (IMDD) transceiver links. A Si-Ge balanced photodetector (PD) has been co-designed and packaged with a novel differential transimpedance amplifier (TIA). The TIA design is realized with a standard 28nm CMOS process and operates with a standard digital supply (1V). Without using any equalization or DSP techniques, the proposed receiver can operate up to 54Gb/s with a BER less than the KP4 limit (2.2×10 -4 ) under an optical modulation amplitude (OMA) of -8.6dBm, while the power efficiency has been optimized to 0.55pJ/bit (0.98pJ/bit if output buffer is included).

CORNERSTONE’s Silicon Photonics Rapid Prototyping Platforms: Current Status and Future Outlook

“…However, we believe this subject should be expanded to a synergistic design concept, in which the photonics and electronics devices should be closely codesigned in every possible aspect, including the operation speed, power efficiency, footprint, signal integrity and physical connection approaches. Two of our recent design examples [150,151] demonstrate the advantages of this design philosophy.…”

High-Speed DD Transmission Using a Silicon Receiver Co-Integrated With a 28-nm CMOS Gain-Tunable Fully-Differential TIA

“…It is worth noting that the there is a trade-off between receiver bandwidth and transimpedance gain (and hence noise performance) for the TIA-integrated receiver. For our proposed receiver that operates under a standard digital supply voltage (~1 V), we have chosen the optimal gain-bandwidth product, which yielded an overall receiver bandwidth of around 20 GHz [22]. The properties of the fabricated optical receiver have been reported in detail in [22].…”

“…For our proposed receiver that operates under a standard digital supply voltage (~1 V), we have chosen the optimal gain-bandwidth product, which yielded an overall receiver bandwidth of around 20 GHz [22]. The properties of the fabricated optical receiver have been reported in detail in [22]. In the experiments conducted in this work, we study the transmission performance achieved using the optical receiver with single/differential output and assess its gain-tuning capability.…”

“…The transimpedance amplifier (TIA) typically included in optical receiver designs largely determines the overall sensitivity, operation speed, linearity performance and power consumption of the receiver module [13][14][15][16][17]. A number of optical receivers co-integrated with TIAs have been reported in the literature, the realisations of which were based on various technology platforms, including 250-nm, 130 T [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Owing to the higher dynamic range and transition frequency of the BiCMOS technology [23][24], most of the high-speed demonstrations of TIA-integrated optical receivers to date have been realised in BiCMOS processes.…”

“…For example, a 106-Gb/s optical receiver co-integrated with a 55-nm SiGe BiCMOS TIA was presented and investigated in a back-to-back (B2B) configuration in [17]. Compared to the BiCMOS technology, standard CMOS exhibits advantages such as lower cost and higher power efficiency [22]. Moreover, use of the same standard CMOS process for the TIA in the optical receiver as for the subsequent digital signal processing (DSP) chips [25] eliminates the need for interconnection between the two, which can then also share the same ~1V power supply.…”