A single-chip bipolar AGC amplifier with large dynamic range for optical-fiber receivers operating up to 3 Gbit/s

A complete automatic gain control (AGC) main amplifier for gigabit-per-second optical-fiber transmission system was carefully designed and integrated on a single chip, using a standard 2- mu m silicon bipolar technology. Gain control was performed by use of the four-quadrant multiplier principle. The amplifier is characterized by a maximum voltage gain of 40 dB, a large input dynamic range of 40 dB, a maximum bit rate of 3 Gb/s, and a gain-independent 3-dB cutoff frequency of 2.5 GHz. The experimental results agree very well with the simulation predictions.<
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