Experimental Comparison of Three Different Circuit Concepts for a Monolithic 10 Gb/s InP-Based Receiver-OEIC

Different circuit concepts for an InP-based 10 Gb/s monolithic front-end receiver-OEIC consisting of an InGaAs/InP pin-photodiode and InAlAs/InGaAs/InP-HEMTs are compared using on-wafer measurements. Small-signal and noise current measurements have been perforied on simple straightforward high impedance OEICs with two different terminations, gate-circuits with a source follower, and transimpedance-cascode circuits to characterise bandwidth, gain or responsivity, electrical output matching, and noise current. The latter reveal a medium input noise current of 13.5 pA/√Hz for the transimpedance circuit, which is the lowest value ever reported for a monolithic 10 Gb/s-receiver-OEIC.