46 Gb/s DEMUX, 50 Gb/s MUX, and 30 GHz static frequency divider in silicon bipolar technology

High-speed multiplexers, demultiplexers, and static frequency dividers are key electronic components in future optical broadband communication systems. In this paper we present a 50 Gb/s multiplexer, a 46 Gb/s demultiplexer, and a 30 GHz static frequency divider. The IC's were fabricated in a self-aligning double-polysilicon bipolar technology using state-of-the-art production process modules. The achieved results are record speeds not only for silicon, but, except for the static divider, for all semiconductor technologies. The high performance of this chipset shows that circuits in silicon bipolar technology will play an important role in future multigigabit-per-second fiber-optic communication systems, at data rates of 20 Gb/s or even at 40 Gb/s.