Design and Assessment of a High Gamma-Dose Tolerant VCSEL Driver With Discrete SiGe HBTs

A digital VCSEL driver has been designed, simulated and assessed under radiation, using discrete SiGe HBTs. The circuit tolerates high levels of gamma radiation, up to 12 MGy, features less than 2% drift in the forward current of the VCSEL and operates well above 10 MHz. The output duty cycle shows no notable degradation at 200 kHz, enabling the design of robust analog and digital communication systems using pulse-width-modulation (PWM) schemes