A 25-Gb/s 49-mW CMOS-driven equalized optical link

A low-power CMOS-driven VCSEL-based link using a 2-tap feed-forward equalizer in the transmitter is reported at 850-nm wavelengths. Power efficiencies of 1.5, 2.0, and 3.8 pJ/b are achieved at 22.5, 25, and 28.5 Gb/s, respectively.