A 64-Gb/s 4.2-Vpp Modulator Driver Using Stacked-FET Distributed Amplifier Topology in 65-nm CMOS

A high swing, 64-Gb/s optical modulator driver is demonstrated in 65 nm CMOS technology. The design is based on the distributed amplifier (DA) topology together with stacked-FET and shunt peaking techniques to obtain high gain and large bandwidth, while is also capable of protecting the MOS transistor under large output voltage swing. The stacked-FET distributed amplifier can reach an operating data rate of 64-Gb/s with 4.2 Vpp, which achieves the largest voltage swing at the highest data rate compared with other works in a similar CMOS technology.