155Mb/s-40 Gb/s ICs for optic-fiber transmission systems

Summary form only given, as follows. The complete presentation was not made available for publication as part of the conference proceedings. As tele- and data-communications rapidly develop, optic-fiber networks are widely implemented. The data speeds of the systems are higher and higher. Up to now, data speeds from 155 Mbis to 40 Gb/s have been standardized by ITU-T for the SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) and SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork). Accordingly, high speed ICs for these systems are needed. For different levels of data speeds, different technologies should be chosen on account of the performance, the availability, and the cost. At ultra-high speeds up to 40 Gb/s, GaAs and InP technologies should be utilized. A 40 Gb/s laserhodulator driver and a 40 Gbis demultiplexer made of GaAs PHEMT will be presented. As the feature size getting smaller, CMOS technologies begin to take an important role in high-performance and high-speed IC design. Nowadays, many sub-micron CMOS technologies are available for IC realization of optic-fiber transmission systems. In this report, a series ICs for application of optic-fiber transmission systems in the data rate range from 155Mbls up to 10 Gb/s will be presented. To reach ultra-high bit rates, many special circuit techniques should be utilized. Differential and balanced structures are useful to improve the performances of the ultra-high speed ICs. In addition, the packaging and test of the ICs are also discussed. The tendency of IC development is the division of the works among the design, the manufacture, and the packaging. The mode of the fabless design plus the foundry will be discussed and the MPW (multi-project-wafer) concept will be recommended as a cost effective approach of IC realization.