E/O module integrated with combined Tx/Rx and Mux/Demux

An electrical/optical (E/O) module integrated with a combined transmitter/receiver (Tx/Rx) and multiplexer/demultiplexer (Mux/Demux) is proposed. With this topology, a high efficient bidirectional optical link can be implemented in the term of saving power consumption, chip area, board area as common blocks are shared between Tx and Rx as well as Mux and Demux. Based on this topology, a design of 2-channel Tx/Mux and Rx/Demux is realized in a 0.18 mum TSMC CMOS technology. The post simulation results demonstrate a 3-dB bandwidth of 4 GHz and 5 Gbps clear eye diagrams. The combined solution would save the chip area and power consumption of 10% and 23% respectively compared to discrete circuits implementations.