A 1.25 Gb/s fully integrated optical receiver for SI-POF applications

This paper presents the design of a 1.25 Gb/s fully integrated BiCMOS optical receiver for short reach applications through low-cost step index plastic optical fiber. The limited bandwidth caused by the fiber is compensated by a continuous-time equalizer. A low noise transimpedance amplifier with some peaking overcomes the limitation introduced by the integrated photodiode. A post-amplifier has been included to generate the required digital output levels. The design achieves 1.25 Gb/s through 50 m SI-POF with a power consumption of 148 mW and a sensitivity of −16.4 dBm for a BER of 10
⁻¹²
. Simulation results are provided.