A 3-V fully differential distributed limiting driver for 40 Gb/s optical transmission systems

A fully differential 40 Gb/s electroabsorption modulator driver is presented. Based on a distributed limiting architecture, the circuit can supply up to 3.0 V peak-to-peak per side in a 50 /spl Omega/ load at data rates as high as 44 Gb/s. Both the input and output are internally matched to 50 /spl Omega/ and exhibit return loss of better than 10 dB up to 50 GHz. Additional features of the driver include the use of a single -5.2 V supply, output swing control (1.7 to 3.0 V/sub pp/ per side), DC output offset control (-0.15 V to -1.1 V) and pulse width control (30% to 70%).