Monolithic Low-Power 6-Gb/s Optical Transmitter for a Silicon HBT-Based Carrier Injection Electroabsorption Modulator

Photonic devices monolithically integrated with nanoscale electronic signal processing circuitry in silicon are emerging as a disruptive technology to reduce cost and improve optical system integration and performance. Silicon heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT)-based carrier injection electroabsorption modulators (EAMs) implemented in a commercial silicon process have several merits, including high speed, low power, low driving voltage, small footprint, and high modulation efficiency. A low-power high-speed optical transmitter driver module has been realized in a 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS process for an HBT-based carrier-injection-type modulator. The transmitter consists of a monolithic 2
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- 1 pseudorandom bit sequence generator and a driver circuit with digitally tuned preemphasis strength. With 1.5-V power supply, the transmitter circuit consumes 44.5 mW at an operating speed of 6 Gb/s.