True Voltage-Mode NRZ VCSEL Transmitter enabling 60 Gbit/s at 0.37 pJ/bit in 22 nm FDSOI

A DC-coupled single supply NRZ voltage-mode VCSEL driver is demonstrated in 22 nm CMOS SOI eliminating the need for energy-inefficient equalization techniques for data rates up to 60 Gbit/s. The highly digitized driver architecture inherently features an impedance (voltage-level) calibration scheme to handle both driver and VCSEL-based process variations. While maintaining error free (BER < le-12) electro-optical transmission, an efficiency of <0.37pJ/bit is reached, improving the SOTA by almost 2x.