Design of a generic and high performance CMOS burst mode laser driver

An innovative 155 Mb/s burst-mode laser driver including a thermometer was designed in digital 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS. The laser driver is a digitally programmable current source with a very high resolution (12 bit). A single array of 1030 unit transistors provides both the bias and the 155 Mb/s drive current. According to our knowledge, both currents sharing the same high-resolution transistor array together with a novel automatic power control loop is unique in a laser driver.