1.25 Gbit/s Over 50 m Step-Index Plastic Optical Fiber Using a Fully Integrated Optical Receiver With an Integrated Equalizer

A single-chip optical receiver with an integrated equalizer is used to achieve a high performance gigabit transmission over step-index plastic optical fiber (SI-POF). The integrated equalizer can compensate for different POF lengths up to 50 m. The integrated optical receiver is fabricated in a low-cost silicon 0.6 μ m BiCMOS technology and has a power consumption of 100 mW. Real-time transmission at data rates of 1.8 Gbit/s over 20 m SI-POF and 1.25 Gbit/s over 50 m SI-POF with high sensitivities and BER of 10
^-9
is achieved. The optical transmitter is based on an edge emitting laser.